Putin Moves to Ban Public Demonstrations

by Christopher A. Ferrara

        First he clamped down on the Catholic Church with Russia’s 1997 law on "freedom of conscience." Then he orchestrated a Kremlin takeover of all the major mass media outlets. Then he got passed a law effectively banning the formation of grass roots opposition parties. Then he systematically eliminated his strongest political opponents by having them all investigated and indicted on trumped up charges of "fraud" and "tax evasion." And now Vladimir Putin is poised to sign legislation, passed by the Putin-dominated Russian Parliament, that will outlaw public demonstrations.

        On April Fool’s Day 2004, The New York Times reported that the Russian Parliament, by a vote of 294 to 137, has passed a law prohibiting rallies outside — get this — "government buildings, embassies and international organizations, on major roads, near schools, hospitals, stadiums, concert halls and religious centers, and at pipelines and environmentally hazardous sites." Wow, that leaves Russians free to demonstrate indoors. Boris Gryzlov, however, who leads Putin’s parliamentary bloc, says "there would still be plenty of places to hold demonstrations." Name three, Boris.

        "This would be the end of political life in the streets," says one Russian politician quoted by the Times. The so-called "liberal" Yabloko Party protested that "The bill is aimed at eliminating the right of citizens for peaceful meetings, demonstrations and pickets." A Yabloko Party protest sign said simply: "No To A Police State." But it looks like it is very much yes to a police state in Putin’s neo-Stalinist Russia.

        And where are the Fatima revisionists in all this? Remember how they laughed at Father Nicholas Gruner when he warned his readers not to be fooled by the latest "liberalization" of Russia and the "fall of communism"? Remember how they scoffed at his claim that Russia could not, and would not, convert unless and until Russia was consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary?

        They laughed and they scoffed and they prided themselves on their "loyalty" to the Pope in accepting the anti-Fatima propaganda of the Pope’s handlers — including that prelate of the New World Order, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, promoter of the International Criminal Court. Yes, it is Cardinal Sodano’s "interpretation" of the Fatima Message that Father Gruner’s "enlightened" critics would have us all adhere to.

        Where are you, Karl Keating? Where are you, Sandra Meisel? Where are you, Al Matt of The Wanderer? Where are you, Pat Madrid? Where are you all — you movers and shakers of neo-Catholic, Fatima revisionist thinking — now that Russia, more than twenty years after the "consecration" of 1984, is under the thumb of a neo-Stalinist dictator who wears nicer suits than his predecessors? What do you have to say for yourselves today?

        Funny, I don’t hear anything. I don’t even hear them laughing anymore.