The Federation Council approved the law on public rallies with lightning speed. In fact, even the decision to send troops into South Ossetia was made more slowly. Yesterday, the State Duma also rushed it through as an emergency measure, but that was far more absurd: in an almost empty chamber, United Russia deputies were scurrying around like cockroaches, pressing the voting buttons on behalf of those who were "absent for valid reasons and had submitted proxies."
(officially, well over 300 people are present in the chamber. That was at 9:20 p.m. By the time the bill was passed, at 11:30 p.m., the rows had thinned out even more) Quite something: United Russia deputies, who became deputies by stealing votes from other parties, are rushing through an extremely important bill for themselves while not even being present in the State Duma. This is some kind of double virtual reality. Nobody knows who, nobody knows how, is passing nobody-knows-what that nobody needs. And now, in response to these legislative innovations: This morning there was a joint meeting of the organizing committees for the June 12 protests. That is, everyone was there: both those putting together the referendum initiative group and those organizing the Protest March. It was once again confirmed that there is not the slightest disagreement; everyone is coordinating their actions. Both initiative groups submitted the most peaceful, non-confrontational, and government-friendly applications possible with one very simple demand: a march and rally along any route and at any location within the Garden Ring (Moscow's central ring road), except Bolotnaya Square. In other words, we are effectively saying: you are always unhappy with our routes, so choose the route and location for us yourselves. Any place in the city center. So that later there can be no talk about how stubborn we are. Central Moscow is huge—is there really no place in it for 100,000 Russian citizens who want to gather peacefully and without weapons? In response, Moscow officials behaved in the most confrontational way possible: they are dragging out the decision until the last moment and then offering obviously unacceptable options outside the city center. So what we are seeing is the Moscow mayor's office and the Moscow Main Directorate of Internal Affairs quite openly doing everything they can to provoke conflict and all sorts of legal violations. Real provocateurs. Today we officially decided: The demands remain unchanged: peaceful marches and a rally anywhere and along any route within the Garden Ring (except Bolotnaya). The June 12 actions will take place no matter what. That is all. A lot of people ask me how I feel about the idea of a referendum. I feel very positively about it. The right to a referendum is one of our most important and inalienable rights. It allows us to express our attitude toward various issues in a completely formal way. Without any opinion polls, focus groups, or fake "people's representatives." Yes, the crooks and thieves have made the procedure as difficult as possible; it is effectively prohibitive, and all attempts to hold a referendum at the federal or local level have failed. You cannot put questions of confidence in officials or government bodies on the ballot. You cannot directly demand new elections. And so on. All referendums held in recent years have concerned only the merger of federal subjects (administrative regions) and were organized by the authorities themselves. But now the situation has changed, and so have our mobilization capabilities. For example, to hold a citywide Moscow referendum, it is necessary to collect 160,000 signatures in one month. Previously, that was unthinkable. Now it is entirely realistic. This new law on rallies alone will spur tens of thousands of people to run out and submit their signatures. In practical terms, we need 4,000 people who will honestly collect 50 signatures each over three weeks. That is not a problem now. Here, on Boris Akunin's LiveJournal, there is a vote underway to choose the questions for a citywide Moscow referendum. Please vote. They are good questions; I like them. However, I am going to propose one more question to the initiative group, and I ask you to support me on this. It definitely does not contradict the referendum law and, it seems to me, is very important for clarifying the political situation in which Russia and Moscow now find themselves. The question is as follows: Do you trust the political party "United Russia"? A poll to see whether anyone besides me likes this question, and to persuade the initiative group to use it. Let me say right away that the list of questions is not limited; you can propose any you like. This is simply my personal suggestion. Put forward your own. [Error: Invalid poll ID 1845126]