slightly illegal

October 7th, 2006 § 0 comments

Another quick note on the persecution of Georgians in Russia.
One thing making it easy for the authorities to go after ethnic Georgians is that, like everbody else in Russia, most of them break the law in one way or another. It seems that almost everything is slightly illegal there – not illegal enough that you expect to get arrested for it, but enough that the police can go after you if they want to. So for example, they can inspect Georgian restaurants and find they all fail to meet some health requirement. Or they can audit the taxes of prominent Georgians, and find that they’re bending the rules. Because that’s what everybody does.
It’s just another spin on the old truth that the more laws you pass, the more corruption you get.

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  • Author: mt
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  • Categories: Eurasia