Immigration rules that jeopardized Russian activist's citizenship bid need fixing, experts say
Maria Kartasheva's application flagged over conviction under Russian law aimed at stifling antiwar dissent
Experts and advocates are calling on Canada to update its immigration procedures to prevent Russians seeking refuge here from being denied Canadian citizenship because they've been charged under a Russian law designed to stifle antiwar dissent.
As CBC began reporting last week, blogger and activist Maria Kartasheva, who's been living in Ottawa since 2019, learned in December that her citizenship application was under review because she'd been charged under a Russian law that prohibits "public dissemination of deliberately false information about the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation."
The law was passed shortly after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and is widely seen as an attempt by the Kremlin to clamp down on any criticism of the ongoing war.
- Canada backtracks on citizenship review for Russian antiwar activist
- Russian law aimed at curbing Ukraine war criticism casts chill over critics
According to an analysis by the New York Times, by last August more than 6,500 people had been arrested or fined under the sweeping law for "discrediting" the Russian army — and in some cases, for antiwar sentiments expressed in private conversations overheard by others.
In November, Kartasheva was convicted and sentenced in absentia to eight years in prison for publishing two blog posts in March 2022 condemning Russian atrocities in the Ukrainian town of Bucha.
Feared deportation
Under Canadian immigration rules, if an applicant is charged with a crime in another country that could be indictable under Canada's Criminal Code, their citizenship application can be revoked or refused.
In Kartasheva's case, she was flagged before her citizenship ceremony last June after disclosing to an immigration official that she was facing the criminal charge in Russia. It took Immigration, Citizenship and Refugees Canada (IRCC) another six months to inform her that her case was under review.
According to IRCC, Kartasheva's alleged crime in Russia is equivalent to Section 372 of Canada's Criminal Code, which prohibits the dissemination of false information "with intent to injure or alarm a person."
"Based on the information currently available to me, it appears that you may be subject to prohibitions under the Citizenship Act," the citizenship officer wrote.
"The worst-case scenario is that I will be deported back to Russia," Kartasheva told CBC last week.
On Tuesday, five days after CBC first published details of Kartasheva's plight, Immigration Minister Marc Miller announced on the social media platform X that Kartasheva would be granted Canadian citizenship after all.
"Ninety-nine per cent of the time, those types of rules are there for a very good reason, and they do a good job in making sure that undesirable people with criminal pasts do not become citizens," Miller told CBC's Power & Politics later that day.
"There can be situations where that rule doesn't work. This is one of them."
Kartasheva, 30, took her citizenship oath later that afternoon in a virtual ceremony at her Ottawa home.
'A shocking case'
While her supporters applauded the eventual outcome, experts and advocates — including a Russian opposition politician convicted under the same law — say Canada must clarify its immigration rules to avoid making the same mistake again.
"This is a shocking case. It's a clear miscarriage of justice," said Matthew Light, and associate professor of criminology and European studies at the University of Toronto, in an interview before Miller's intervention.
"I can only assume it arose through a very basic misunderstanding of the nature of the Russian political system and the law in question, which is … a blatant attempt to silence opposition to the war in Ukraine."
The part about this case that's so unbelievable is that anybody in the Canadian government would believe that this is a proper law.- Matthew Light, University of Toronto
Light said the law has had a "dramatic" effect in Russia, where thousands have been arrested for allegedly discrediting the "special military operation" in Ukraine.
Now, Light said, the Kremlin appears to be taking aim at Russians who have fled.
"I think the fact that the sentence that was handed down in this [case] was so extreme indicates that the Russian government sees it as important to them to send a message to Russian citizens abroad that they can be found and that they can be in trouble with their [adopted country's] government if they speak out against the war."
Light believes the intent of the Russian law is "perfectly clear" and said it's astounding that Canadian immigration officials failed to recognize it for what it is.
"The part about this case that's so unbelievable is that anybody in the Canadian government would believe that this is a proper law," he said, likening it to a Canadian citizen being imprisoned for criticizing the war in Afghanistan.
"It's really that simple. This is somebody who's criticizing a policy of their government, in this case the invasion of Ukraine, and being punished for that."
Canada's reputation at stake
Wesley Wark, senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation and an expert on national security and intelligence issues, called Kartasheva's case extraordinary for its "sheer absurdity."
He was also interviewed before the minister's intervention.
"It's really a kind of Kafkaesque situation that this person has been thrust in," said Wark, who attempted to intervene with senior government officials on Kartasheva's behalf and said her predicament reminded him of another case in which he was involved.
He said Russia might even seize upon the gaffe for its own propaganda purposes.
"In a broader perspective, it does bring … the conduct of the Canadian government into disrepute," Wark said. "On every level — in terms of international relations, in terms of application of the law, in terms of what I call bureaucratic turpitude, reputation impact on the individual in question — it's just so wrong."
Wark suspects Kartasheva's application became bogged down on the desk of a junior official who was operating strictly by the book, but said that doesn't make the government's handling of it any less egregious.
"The very idea that we would even for a moment contemplate looking for an equivalent to a Russian criminal sanction that is politically motivated and designed to stamp out dissent … just strikes me as absurd," he said.
Calling for reform
Maxim Katz, a former opposition politician with Russia's social-liberal Yabloko party who fled to Israel shortly after the invasion of Ukraine, was convicted and sentenced in absentia under the same law, also for speaking out about the massacre of civilians in Bucha.
"There is a problem that even in western countries that don't support Putin's regime at all, there is lack of understanding of what is going on in Russia," said Katz, who also tried to intervene with Canadian officials on Kartasheva's behalf.
I went abroad, and many people went to jail.- Maxim Katz, Russian opposition figure
"This is the situation in our country now. If you speak against the government or against the actions of this government, against the war, you either go to jail or you go abroad. So I went abroad, and many people went to jail," Katz told CBC on Tuesday.
Katz, who has about one million viewers on YouTube, said he's pleased Canada finally recognized the error and did the right thing in Kartasheva's case.
"I'm happy that in Canada that thing was sorted, and this is a very good message and powerful message for all those people in Russia that oppose Putin and oppose the war."
An activist group co-founded by Kartasheva, the Russian Canadian Democratic Alliance, said it plans to launch a parliamentary petition calling on Canada to list foreign laws that are politically motivated and have no equivalent in Canada, so immigration officials can more easily assess applications from those facing criminal charges abroad.
On Thursday, CBC News asked IRCC whether it's updating any of its policies to flag such foreign laws, but the department did not indicate in its emailed response that it's contemplating any changes.
"All files are reviewed under the guiding principles of procedural fairness," the department wrote, adding applicants facing charges or convictions in foreign countries are offered an opportunity to explain themselves.
"Decisions are made on a case-by-case basis by highly trained officers who carefully and systematically assess each charge or conviction. Until a final determination is made, cases are subject to review," IRCC wrote.
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With files from Matthew Kupfer