Let's not turn Russia into an open door!

Russia’s law on Russian Federation citizenship is to come into effect on July 1, 2002, as stipulated by RF presidential decree. The Rossiiskaya Gazeta newspaper published the whole text of the document. .

Head of the Federal Migration Service, Russian Deputy Minister for Internal Affairs Andrey Chernenko, as cited by the newspaper, says that the new law will cut down on corruption and place a barrier before HIV-infected people and criminals trying to invade Russia. “It is an open secret that, currently, district police officers successfully register anybody for a bribe. Those people then go to the Federal Migration Service and can gain Russian citizenship within a very short period of time.” Nothing of this kind will occur once the law comes into effect.

At the same time, Andrey Chernenko thinks that the new law “will cause no harm to people from a social point of view. Relations between Russians and those wishing to obtain RF citizenship are coordinated by bilateral agreements. People will receive everything provided by the agreements.” The new law is rather strict, indeed. It makes requirements for obtaining RF citizenship tougher. According to the law, foreigners and non-residents wishing to receive RF citizenship,are to live for not less than five years on Russia’s territory after getting a residential permit, know and observe the Constitution and RF legislation, should have a legal source of income, know Russian very well, ect.

By signing the law, President Putin made the statement that “we should not turn Russia into an open door,” but, at the same time, it was stressed that “it is very important not to go to extremes.”

Those who criticize the document insist that the new law excludes many things connected with the granting of RF citizenship to citizens of the former Soviet Union. The law is said to deprive citizens of the former Soviet Union of privileges in the procedure of receiving RF citizenship.

Duma deputy Anatoly Chekhoyev says: “We have betrayed 28 million of Russians living in the CIS countries. By doing so, we opened the doors to enemies and closed them for our friends.” He also thinks that the great number of officially non-registered people in Russia is not an excuse for such a law. The new law on RF citizenship was passed by the State Duma after long debates on April 19 and approved by the Federation Council on May 15.

When the document was being considered in the Duma, the Union of Rightist Forces, Yabloko, the Communist Party, and the Agro-industrial Group turned the document down. On the contrary, the centrist associations, Unity, Fatherland – All Russia, People’s Deputy, and the Liberal Democratic Party approved the new law.

Sergey Yugov PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Maria Gousseva

Read the original in Russian: http://www.pravda.ru/main/2002/06/05/42282.html