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Foreign agents law should not violate rights of citizens, Putin says

The head of state reacted to the remarks by Russia’s Central Election Commission (CEC) chairwoman Ella Pamfilova that it is necessary to adjust the foreign agents law and how it is applied

MOSCOW, December 3. /TASS/. The foreign agents law should not violate the rights of citizens, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.

The head of state reacted to the remarks by Russia’s Central Election Commission (CEC) chairwoman Ella Pamfilova that it is necessary to adjust the foreign agents law and how it is applied "in order for it to be more effective and selective, focused, targeted." "In order [for the law] to correspond to those goals for which it was approved. <…> [So that] it won’t violate the rights of the citizens," Putin added.

The CEC chairwoman also told the president that candidates, media outlets and observers fulfilling the function of a foreign agent were not disenfranchised. "Since now the subject of foreign agents is popular, we would like to say that at this election absolutely none of them were disenfranchised," she said. The CEC chairwoman reiterated that at the election there was one candidate at the federal level with the functions of a foreign agent or an affiliation with such an organization while in the regions "six people participated along with everyone else." "Just the same way, both the observers and the media outlets that also fulfill the functions of foreign agents participated along with everybody else on equal conditions, both observing and providing coverage, in accordance with all effective laws, just like all the others," she concluded.

"I know your position which involves looking carefully, analyzing the practice of this law’s application, introducing certain corrections there. I know about this," Putin assured.

Additionally, according to the CEC chairwoman, "the elections were very competitive, a high and genuine level of competition," where 14 parties participated in the State Duma elections while the "refusal level" for registering candidates was minimal. "There were fewer refusals by a factor of three. If in 2016, there were about 1,189 refusals then this year there were only 372. That is, three times fewer. This utterly smashes all speculation that we were allegedly denying [registration]," she said.

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