Russia’s State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, voted Wednesday in favor of a bill that would ban the public from seeing the annual incomes and fortunes of lawmakers.

This happened on the same day when the justice system in Moscow decided to close the oldest Russian human rights organization, the Helsinki Group, which had been active since the 70s, from the Soviet period, reports The Guardian.

According to a statement published on the website of the State Duma, as of March 1, public information on income declarations of Russian parliamentarians will no longer allow them to be identified.

Lawmakers, as before, will be obliged to submit their declarations to the tax authorities every year, on the basis of which “summaries” will be published.

“This is about the protection of personal data,” said People’s Deputy Pavlo Krasheninnikov in a press release.

The draft law was adopted on Wednesday in the third and final reading. It must also be approved by the Federation Council, Russia’s upper house, and promulgated by President Vladimir Putin – usually a formality.

In December, Putin issued a decree canceling the requirement to declare income and property during Moscow’s offensive against Ukraine.

“De facto, we are returning to the Soviet model of fighting corruption,” political scientist Oleksiy Makarkin told the Kommersant newspaper on Monday.

Transparency International ranked Russia 136 out of 180 in its 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index.

THE JUDGE BANNED THE HELSINKI GROUP, THE FOUNDER OF WHICH WAS PRAISED

The vote in the Duma took place on the same day that a Moscow court ordered the closure of Russia’s oldest human rights organization, the Helsinki Group, silencing another respected institution. The judge of the Moscow City Court granted the request of the Ministry of Justice to “dissolve” the human rights group, the court said in a statement.

The Moscow Helsinki Group said it would appeal the decision, but it is another in a series of court rulings against organizations critical of the Kremlin, a trend that has intensified since Putin sent troops to Ukraine last year.

The Helsinki Group in Moscow was established in 1976, when Russia was part of the Soviet Union, and is considered the oldest human rights group in Russia. For decades, the organization was headed by Lyudmila Alekseeva, a Soviet-era dissident who became a symbol of resistance in Russia and died in 2018.

When Alekseeva – the dean of the human rights movement in Russia – celebrated her 90th birthday, Putin visited her home, bringing her flowers. “I am grateful to you for everything you have done for a huge number of people in our country for many, many years,” Putin told him at the time.

Now the Ministry of Justice has accused the human rights group of violating its legal status by conducting activities such as monitoring court proceedings outside the Moscow region.

Before Putin sent troops into Ukraine, Russia dissolved another pillar of the country’s rights movement, the Memorial organization. The group emerged as a symbol of hope during Russia’s chaotic transition to democracy in the early 1990s and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year, less than a year after it was ordered to shut down.

The Russian government has used a number of laws to stifle critical voices, such as introducing prison terms of up to 15 years for spreading “false information” about the military.

Most oppositionists are either in prison or in exile.