Dmitry Gudkov, the only State Duma deputy known for his support of opposition activists, said Wednesday he had been stripped of access to state documents he was entitled to as a lawmaker.
Despite a law granting deputies access to such information, his requests have been turned down by the Audit Chamber and Foreign Ministry recently, the RBC news agency reported Wednesday. His colleague Andrei Makarov, chair of the Duma's budget committee, also refused to show Gudkov a document he asked for, the report said.
Gudkov requested a year-old report by the Audit Chamber regarding construction of the problem-riddled Vostochny Cosmodrome in April and received an answer from one of the auditors that it had already been sent to the State Duma, the Prosecutor General's Office, the Investigative Committee and the Federal Security Service (FSB), RBC reported.
In June Gudkov filed a request with the Foreign Ministry asking its head Sergei Lavrov whether there was a secret list of Europeans banned from entering Russia, the report said.
The answer from the ministry was classified as “for internal use only” and could not be revealed to the media, but an unidentified source close to Gudkov told RBC that it said the relevant information had already been sent to the State Duma's leadership.
Gudkov had not previously had any problems accessing state documents, RBC reported. The lawmaker told the news agency that officials are now failing to comply with a law that grants deputies access to official information.