dagblog - Comments for "Russian police raid activist leaders' homes"

The Price of Opposition in

artappraiser — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 04:03:46 +0000

In reply to Russian police raid activist leaders' homes

The Price of Opposition in Russia
by Julia Ioffe, News Desk @ newyorker.com, June 14, 2012

Amid a fresh round of protests, the Russian state wages psychological warfare against its own citizens.

Excerpt:

[....] Why is the state doing this? Yashin has said that he thinks they are ginning up a criminal case against opposition leaders like him. More likely, it is a case of an overzealous machine seeking to please its master. If one reads the tea leaves—and that’s often all one can do in Russia—it is clear that Putin has had enough of the protests. Go out and protest for fair elections, but the elections are now over, and he won. Now it’s time to go home. But people don’t seem interested in that, and both protests, on May 6th and on June 12th, drew tens of thousands of people. (In fact, many of those I spoke to at the protest on Tuesday said that they had planned on skipping the rally but changed their minds when they heard about the searches.)

How to deal with them? Putin is no Assad, and at least so far he has shied away from a real crackdown. But he’s clearly unhappy with the situation and wants it to go away. In a country where the law is not a framework of protections and guarantees but rather an instrument used selectively for taking someone out, it helps when your friends or loyal minions are behind the controls of the legal system. Putin’s friend and classmate Alexander Bastrykin, for example, happens to be the head of the Investigative Committee, the same ostensibly independent government organization that harassed Navalny’s grandmother-in-law and chaperoned Sobchak to the bathroom [....]

Large Anti-Putin Protest

artappraiser — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 08:16:45 +0000

In reply to Russian police raid activist leaders' homes

Large Anti-Putin Protest Signals Growing Resolve
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN and ELLEN BARRY, New York Times, June 12/13, 2012

MOSCOW — Tens of thousands of protesters thronged central Moscow in a drenching rain on Tuesday, voicing renewed fury at President Vladimir V. Putin and defying recent efforts by his government to clamp down on the political opposition movement.

The large turnout, rivaling the big crowds that had gathered at the initial antigovernment rallies in December, suggested that the tough new posture adopted by the Kremlin against the protests was emboldening rather than deterring Mr. Putin’s critics [....]

Note: has slideshow

No, I was thinking of the

Donal — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 13:44:31 +0000

In reply to About a year and half ago if

No, I was thinking of the preemptive arrests in St Paul and Minneapolis just before the Republican National Convention. As I recall they also arrested many reporters during the event.

About a year and half ago if

Elusive Trope — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 12:51:39 +0000

In reply to Didn't this happen in

About a year and half ago if this is the incident that you're thinking of.

The beginning of one of the comments sums up one view:

These raids are yet another ridiculous instance of state repression - activists are not terrorists! Terror tactics are not carried out by movements for social justice, but by U.S. imperialism. And these raids are designed to intimidate and quell the movement against that imperialism, here and elsewhere.

The point would be one does not know whether the raid was a legitimate one or one whose intent was designed to intimidate and quell the movement. It is possible that the FBI was acting in good faith on tips and evidence these individuals were possible suspects in what could be considered terrorist activity. It is also possible that they were acting on orders on individuals being driven by political ideology, individuals who should be weeded out and punished.

It does say something that one has to go back nearly two years to find a similar case, especially given the occupy movement. I am sure there have been a few since that time, and yes we have the FBI snaring (legally or illegally depending on one's point of view) in sting operations.

Didn't this happen in

Donal — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 12:02:24 +0000

In reply to Russian police raid activist leaders' homes

Didn't this happen in Minneapolis a few years ago?