Putin Proposes New Law to Circumvent Courts

You know what’s really annoying?  When you want to arrest some protesters but then the courts get in the way and you actually have to go through the trouble of inventing some charges against them.  It’s much easier just to skip that whole hassle.  From Der Spiegel:

In the future, those organizing or participating in unauthorized demonstrations can simply be locked up, if the government approves a plan to assign police duties to the Federal Security Service (FSB), Russia’s domestic intelligence service and the successor to the dreaded KGB.

That’s the proposed legislation in bill 364427-5, brought before the government by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who is also the former head of the FSB. In the interest of suppressing opposition and taking even tougher action against the Islamic underground movement in the Caucasus, the bill would allow the FSB to imprison citizens they consider problematic for up to 15 days without even involving the courts. (…)

The fact that Putin is brushing aside Medvedev’s concerns reveals how nervous Russia’s leaders are — they no longer feel certain of their own people.