The Russian government should inflict harsher residence registration rules on migrants who violate local customs and regulations, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Monday.
"The migrant registration system in large population centers should be improved further," he said. "We have evidently jumped the gun in liberalizing the procedure."
Responsibility for the violation of registration rules should be treated as a criminal offense, he said.
A wave of ethnic tension swept throughout Russia in recent weeks following the shooting of a football fan by a migrant from Dagestan, one of the mainly Muslim North Caucasus regions that include the volatile republics of Chechnya and Ingushetia as well. 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 last week.
Russians over 14 years of age 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.
Russia's 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 27 (RIA Novosti)
