There have been many comments on the previous post about Biryulyovo along the lines of: “That’s all clear, and we support introducing visas — but how do we express this as a political position?” The situation really is astonishing. On the one hand, 84% of Russian citizens support introducing a visa regime with the CIS countries.
http://www.levada.ru/03-07-2013/otnoshenie-k-migrantam On the other hand, there is not a single significant political force in the country making this demand. This was especially obvious in the last Moscow mayoral election: all the candidates endlessly said something about migrants and how much they disliked them (obviously, they had all read the polling data), but I was the only candidate who explicitly put a visa regime into my campaign platform. From everyone else we heard various half-measures like “work visas,” a “ban on entry without international passports,” and so on. YABLOKO was outright against a visa regime. Strange, right? But understandable: for Putin and United Russia, this issue is so fundamental that they do not really allow even the “systemic opposition” to speak out on it. Millions of illegal migrants are a problem for us, but for them they are the best possible voters and citizens. They stay quiet, they pay, and they always vote for the boss. That is why Putin, who usually speaks very cautiously and vaguely on all kinds of pressing issues, takes an unambiguous position on the visa question. Here is a recent statement (already after the Moscow election, where illegal migration was the main issue, and after all the foolish attempts to play around with the problem, like “concentration camps for Vietnamese migrants”):
DENPASAR (Indonesia), Oct. 8 — RIA Novosti. A visa regime would only push CIS partners away rather than bring them closer, Russian President Vladimir Putin said while speaking about migration issues. This position has very concrete consequences: quite recently, Russia introduced an additional preferential regime for migrants from Tajikistan staying on its territory: DUSHANBE, Oct. 1 — RIA Novosti, Lidiya Isamova. An agreement between the Republic of Tajikistan and the Russian Federation on the procedure for Tajik citizens staying in the territory of the Russian Federation, signed on February 8, 2013, was ratified on Tuesday by deputies of the lower house of Tajikistan’s parliament. According to this document, presented to lawmakers by the head of Tajikistan’s migration service, Safiallo Devonayev, the** period Tajik citizens may stay in Russia without registration is being extended from the current seven days to 15.** During discussion of the issue, lower house speaker Shukurjon Zuhurov said that during Vladimir Putin’s official visit to Dushanbe in October 2012, an agreement was reached that an intergovernmental accord would be signed granting Tajik citizens a one-time permit for three years of employment in Russia. Safiallo Devonayev noted that the draft agreement has already been prepared and is currently undergoing review by the parties. For his part, Tajikistan Deputy Foreign Minister Mahmudjon Sobirov said that “the issue of introducing a visa regime between the two countries is not being considered at the official level.” According to Tajikistan’s migration service, 800,000 to 900,000 Tajik citizens are currently in Russia as labor migrants. http://ria.ru/world/20131001/966983918.html 15 days without registration. Tell me — why exactly do we need this? Whose interests does it serve? It certainly serves the interests of all sorts of dubious arrivals: bring in heroin, collect the proceeds, go back home. Yes, at this point one might object: not all migrants bring heroin. No, not all of them do. Even so, let’s face the facts: Russia ranks first in the world for heroin consumption, and it gets here precisely through migrant flows: Ro*ssia holds the record for national heroin consumption. Every year, about 70 tons of the drug enter Russia from Afghanistan via the so-called “Northern Route.” The agency estimates the number of Russian drug users at 1.6 to 1.8 million, around 37% of whom are HIV-positive. From Afghanistan, drugs can enter Russia through Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, or Turkmenistan. The main flow goes from Tajikistan through Osh, Kyrgyzstan, into Kazakhstan, and from there into the Russian Federation. Transport is carried out by drug couriers in private or freight vehicles, usually in small batches. * The most common argument for a visa-free regime is this: we are an empire, and this is an instrument of our influence. This is how we keep these countries in the orbit of Russian foreign policy. I won’t even say: go explain that foreign-policy influence to the residents of Biryulyovo. The truth is that all of this is a lie with nothing to do with reality. The visa-free regime has existed for many years (and there has never been a visa regime), yet Russia’s influence in Central Asia has steadily declined. Meanwhile China, quietly and steadily, is carrying out a real expansion there, and its influence in the region is incomparably greater, even though those countries have nothing even remotely like a visa-free regime with China. Of course foreign-policy influence should be expanded, but certainly not at the cost of rising crime and social tension. Why do we need illusory “foreign-policy influence” if achieving it requires creating the preconditions for pogroms inside the country? I believe it is extremely important to declare and formalize the introduction of a visa regime with the countries of Central Asia and the South Caucasus as a key practical political demand. This is also an election promise made by me and my team. We said we would pursue it at the federal level. And we are pursuing it. Since State Duma deputies do not want to deal with this, we can do it another way — make it impossible to ignore such an official initiative. Here it is: http://visa.navalny.ru/ The Anti-Corruption Foundation has drafted a bill “On the introduction of a visa (permit-based) procedure for the entry of citizens of Central Asian and South Caucasus countries into the territory of the Russian Federation” and submitted it to the Russian Public Initiative website to collect signatures. The task, as with the proposal to limit the cost of officials’ cars, is to collect 100,000 signatures. After that, a long and tedious procedure will begin, at the end of which the Russian government must either submit the bill to the State Duma for a vote or kill it. This is an extremely imperfect mechanism, but it is the only existing way in Russia to formalize mass public demands. We understand that the current government will do everything it can to prevent this law from being passed, but right now it is important simply to make one thing clear: this political demand exists, and it is supported by hundreds of thousands of people. Otherwise it will remain in the category of “marg***inal demands.” ***As in: “Well, who exactly is demanding a visa regime? Those people in Biryulyovo? They don’t understand anything, nobody supports them, and they can’t even write a law.” We understand everything, we have mass support, and we write laws better than the government does.
I propose launching a broad campaign in support of a visa regime and this specific bill. As a first step, we created this page http://visa.navalny.ru/ because the link with the address https://www.roi.ru/poll/petition/naselenie_i_migratciya/o-vvedenii-vizovogo-razreshitelnogo-poryadka-vezda-grazhdan-stran-tcentralnoj-azii-i-zakavkazya-na-territoriyu-rossijskoj-federatcii/ is not very convenient to share. At the link you can find both the bill itself and the explanatory note that goes with it. The draft looks complicated because it proposes repealing various legal acts, and those acts regulate visa-free regimes for groups of countries. So in order to keep Belarus and Ukraine visa-free while introducing visas for other countries, many amendments have to be made to different acts. But the essence is very simple: introduce a visa (permit-based) entry regime for citizens of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. The transition period is 6 months. Those who are already here but do not obtain a visa within that time frame (Russia itself will decide how many visas to issue) will have to leave the country. I ask everyone who supports the idea of a visa regime to support this initiative as well, regardless of their other political preferences. Vote here right now. Spread this link http://viza.navalny.ru/ everywhere you can. If you voted “for,” tell your friends and acquaintances about it on all social networks. Our demand is a very sound, very civilized, and very European approach to the problem. A genuinely “constructive agenda.” If 84% of Russian citizens support a visa regime, then let us become the formal representatives of their political will. And then no one will be able to say that “this issue is not being discussed at the official level.” Vote. http://visa.navalny.ru/