Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warned on Tuesday that the government may inflict harsher residence registration rules on migrants who violate local customs and regulations.
A wave of ethnic tension has swept Russia in recent weeks following the shooting of a football fan by a migrant from the mainly Muslim North Caucasus region. On December 11 over 5,000 football hooligans and nationalists clashed with police outside the Kremlin walls and there have been numerous ethnic clashes across the country ever since.
"If we do not... treat each other with respect, what will we do? We will have, to put it mildly, to improve registration rules in the country, especially in large cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg," Putin said at a meeting with football fans in Moscow.
The current registration procedure "has been liberalized to the full," the premier added.
Russians over 14 currently have to notify the federal migration agencies in person if they move to another place in the country where they intend to stay for more than 90 days. However, the time-consuming procedure is largely ignored, with most citizens preferring to pay a small fine or bribe if they get caught out.
"Russia's strength lies in its multi-ethnicity," Putin said. "But if we don't understand how to handle this force; if we run around like madmen brandishing razors, we will destroy it."
It is not immediately clear how the new suggestion ties in with earlier plans voiced by Putin to simplify the bureaucratic registration rules by enabling citizens to register via the Internet.
Russia's complicated registration procedure is, like much of the country's bureaucracy, a leftover from the Soviet Union, when citizens were required to obtain permission to live in a certain place.
MOSCOW, December 21 (RIA Novosti)
