GENEVA (13 August 2026) – The UN Special Rapporteur on
the situation of human rights in the Russian Federation,
Mariana Katzarova, today warned that a new Russian law
imposing sweeping restrictions on Russian exiles is the
newest tool against Government critics and anti-war voices,
escalating repression at home and transnational repression
abroad. She issued the following statement:
“On 4
August, President Vladimir Putin signed Federal Law No.
284-FZ on “temporary restrictive measures in respect of
persons who are outside the Russian Federation and are
evading the execution of punishment”, together with a
companion amendments law, leaving those affected extremely
vulnerable and stripped of a range of civil
rights.
The Ministry of Justice will maintain a public
list of Russians abroad with an unserved criminal
conviction, or convictions for certain administrative
offences. Once listed, 14 categories of restrictions apply:
the freezing of funds and property; withdrawal of most
consular functions, including issuing and renewing passports
and registering marriages and name changes; refusal of all
digital State services; suspension of licences and
accreditation; annulment of electronic signatures; and bans
on driving, vehicle registration, property transactions,
notarial acts, powers of attorney, credit, self-employment
and remote banking.
The law is presented as a means of
securing “the inevitability of punishment.” Alongside
criminal convictions, it is triggered by administrative
offences, every one of them politically motivated:
“foreign agents” rules, “undesirable organisations”,
“war censorship laws” (“discrediting the armed
forces” and “fake news” about the army), calls for
sanctions or “to violate the territorial integrity” of
Russia. Russian courts have used these provisions since 2022
to punish journalists, lawyers, human rights defenders,
artists and anti-war activists.
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Vyacheslav Volodin,
Chair of the State Duma, left no doubt about the targets,
describing them as “extremists” and “traitors to the
Motherland”.
No court decides who is listed. The
person is not notified or heard; the measures are called
“temporary”, yet the law sets no time limit.
In
substance this is a targeted punishment of anti-war voices
and Government critics en masse, designed to make
life outside Russia unsustainable. Those affected keep the
duties of citizenship but lose most of its content thus
rendering them de facto stateless.
As Russia remains
bound by its international human rights law obligations, I
call on the Russian authorities to repeal this law and quash
convictions handed down in absentia in politically motivated
cases.
I call on Member States to see this law for
what it is: a severe form of transnational repression.
States hosting Russians at risk should ensure they can
obtain and renew identity and travel documents, regularise
their residence, retain access to banking and employment,
and should not forcibly return them, or give legal effect to
designations under this law. Full protection to Government
critics, human rights defenders and anti-war voices in exile
is paramount for the survival of Russian civil
society.”
Mariana Katzarova is
the Special
Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Russian
Federation
Special Rapporteurs/Independent
Experts/Working Groups are independent human rights experts
appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council.
Together, these experts are referred to as the Special
Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special
Procedures experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not
UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. While
the UN Human Rights office acts as the secretariat for
Special Procedures, the experts serve in their individual
capacity and are independent from any government or
organization, including OHCHR and the UN. Any views or
opinions presented are solely those of the author and do not
necessarily represent those of the UN or
OHCHR.
Country-specific observations and
recommendations by the UN human rights mechanisms, including
the special procedures, the treaty bodies and the Universal
Periodic Review, can be found on the Universal Human Rights
Index https://uhri.ohchr.org/en/
UN
Human Rights, country page –
https://www.ohchr.org/en/countries/russian-federation
