The revolt is brewing in Russia, hard hit by the Covid-19, while the authorities have imposed a health pass in certain regions to take transport or access public places.
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It is a paradox in a country where one risks going to prison for having held up a sign for three weeks, in many cities, the anti “QR code” rallies, the Russian version of the health pass, are multiplying in Kazan, the capital of the Republic of Tatarstan, west of Russia. The country is one of the most affected in the world: there are more than 1,200 deaths per day from Covid-19.
Far from the official statistics which show 270,000 dead, the government has acknowledged that the number of deaths has approached 750,000 since the start of the pandemic. The federal power is still hesitant to take coercive measures and the revolt is brewing in the regions which impose the health pass in transport or public places.
In Kazan, a few hundred people braved the police. “The gatherings are regulated by Federal Law 54, a police loudspeaker yells. And you did not file an application … “ “As if someone was going to allow us to protest”, quips a woman. The demonstrators stand, facing the cameras. And on social networks, we find remarks whose freedom of tone is unusual in Russia today. “We don’t want to be numbers, denounces a demonstrator. We want to be people, to have our own opinion and to be allowed into transport without a QR code. “
According to some political scientists, there is a tacit contract between the government and the population: authority on the one hand, the possibility of tracing one’s path, of accumulating several jobs (not always declared), on the other. With the Covid, this contract has been broken and for many Russians this is much more serious than silencing opponents.