The State of Affairs in Russia

[Syt]

And because we're fair and balanced, the Russian view:

http://rt.com/politics/russian-ngo-probes-in-line-with-foreign-agents-law-ministry-797/

Amnesty International probe lawful, pre-scheduled - Ministry

The Russian Justice Ministry has announced that the checks in the Russian office of AI and other NGOs were held to investigate if the real activities of these organizations matched the declared ones.

In a statement released on Monday the ministry's press-service elaborated that this especially concerned the recently introduced law on regulation of activities of non-profit organizations acting as foreign agents. The statement also reads that the ministry "used the measures of legal reaction as provided by the law" and that the NGO activities were probe "within the Justice Ministry's competence."

Mass audits of Russian NGOs started on March 21 and were held together by the Justice Ministry and the Prosecutor General's Office. In earlier comments the prosecutors said this was a scheduled inspection. On Monday, law enforcers visited the Moscow office of Amnesty International.

A member of the Human Rights Council with the Russian president and head of the Agora rights group, Pavel Chikov, told the mass media that the law enforcers "raided hundreds of NGOs and rights groups."

The law on Foreign Agents came into force in November 2012. It orders all NGOs that accept foreign funding to register as foreign agents. The Russian sponsors of the bill claimed that it copied a similar US legislation and that the disclosure of foreign funding would help Russian public to better understand the motives of the activists.

Several Russian NGOs blasted the new law as an attempt to pressure them and said that it threatened the very existence of the rights movement in the country. Leading organizations, such as the Moscow Helsinki Group, Memorial, For Human Rights, Golos (Voice) and others have promised to boycott the new law.

After the last week's checks the head of the veteran NGO Moscow Helsinki Group, Lyudmila Alekseyeva, told the press that she feared that the mass crackdown would end in closure of many well-known rights organizations.

The Presidential Council for Human Rights addressed the prosecutor general with a complaint over "massive and unfounded" checks of various non-profit organizations in many of Russia's regions. The council members said in line with the law that regulated their activities and with the latest instructions from the president that the results of the inspections must be made public.

So far no Russian NGOs have received the foreign agent status. The Sword and Shield group from the central Russian region of Chuvashia has submitted an application (saying they wanted to conduct an experiment), but the Justice Ministry turned it down.

[derspiess]

Meanwhile, the Social Democrat frontrunner for the German election has said in an interview that Russia can't be measured by western democratic standards, calling them a partner whoe interests Germany knows very well and should take into account. Western standards of a pluralist democracy aren't applicable to Russia he said.

Awesome.  Now is this dude from the SPD or SED?

North German, born in Hamburg. He was economics minister in my home state before becoming minister president of Germany's most populous state of North-Rhine Westphalia.

I was kidding.  But what's the deal with North Germans and leftism?  I mean my ancestors came from there & all so they're my peeps but I think I'd be a lot happier in Bavaria in spite of the Catholicism

[Neil]

Meh.  Fuck the NGOs.  They can't make the world a better place.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Meanwhile, the Social Democrat frontrunner for the German election has said in an interview that Russia can't be measured by western democratic standards, calling them a partner whoe interests Germany knows very well and should take into account. Western standards of a pluralist democracy aren't applicable to Russia he said.

Awesome.  Now is this dude from the SPD or SED?

North German, born in Hamburg. He was economics minister in my home state before becoming minister president of Germany's most populous state of North-Rhine Westphalia.

I was kidding.  But what's the deal with North Germans and leftism?  I mean my ancestors came from there & all so they're my peeps but I think I'd be a lot happier in Bavaria in spite of the Catholicism

It all started with that commie Bismarck who set up the first modern welfare state 

[Syt]

Yeah, in general the North of Germany feels more libertarian than the South.

[Syt]

And another opposition politician goes to jail :

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/18/alexei-navalny-five-years-prison-russia

In a nutshell: guy who investigated corruption and bribery in the Russian government gets put on trial for embezzlement from his time as advisor to a regional governor. Radio this morning said that the prosecution dropped the charges twice before the Kremlin stepped in and told them to put him on trial.

The Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been sentenced to five years in prison at the end of a trial that was seen as politically motivated.

Navalny was taken from the courtroom in handcuffs after the judge, Sergei Blinov, ended a three-hour verdict reading by finding him guilty of embezzlement. He hugged his wife, Yulia, and was led away by police.

On Thursday night, thousands of Russians flooded the main arteries leading to the Kremlin, demanding his freedom and calling for the ousting of the president, Vladimir Putin. Dozens were detained.

An anti-corruption activist who became the most popular figure to emerge from protests that erupted around Putin's return to the Kremlin last year, Navalny was accused of embezzlement, and a handful of other charges, after Putin unleashed a crackdown on the opposition in the wake of his inauguration.

"When I heard the verdict, it felt like it was happening to one of my relatives," said Yevgeny Zakharov, a 31-year-old lawyer for a state-run oil company. "My hands were shaking."

Navalny has built a large following via corruption investigations into Putin's closest allies that he publicises on his popular social media accounts and blogs. On Tuesday, just two days before the verdict hearing, he released an investigation into alleged corruption at Russian Railways, one of Russia's largest state-run firms, headed by a close Putin ally, Vladimir Yakunin. He has dubbed Putin Russia's "main thief".

The verdict against him – that he embezzled 16m roubles (£325,000) from a timber firm while advising the governor of Russia's Kirov region – is widely seen as a means of silencing him.

The charismatic 37-year-old said goodbye to his supporters via his popular Twitter account: "OK. Don't get bored here without me. And most importantly – don't dawdle, the frog won't jump from the oil pipes itself."

He was sentenced alongside a co-defendant, Petr Ofitserov, who was given four years in jail. Ofitserov's wife, and the mother of his five children, sobbed uncontrollably after the sentence was handed down.

As the verdict was being read, Ofitserov wrote on his Facebook page: "I'm getting lots of messages saying: 'hold on, hold on'. Thanks everyone for the support – it helps. But if they jail people like us, then we're not the ones who will have to hold on. It's bad in the cage, but at least it's honest. You'll have to make a more difficult choice – either you're with them or with yourselves."

In Moscow, the centre of last year's anti-Putin protests, Russians erupted in anger at the verdict. Thousands occupied Tverskaya, the main street leading to the Kremlin, as riot police and special forces attempted to break up the gathering. Protesters shouted "Freedom" and erupted into applause as cars honked in solidarity.

In a possible sign that the Kremlin was unsure how to deal with the protesters, prosecutors announced they would challenge Navalny's arrest directly from the courtroom and ask for him to be released during the appeals process. A hearing was set for 10am on Friday.

William Hague, the UK foreign secretary, said he was concerned about the sentence, which he said pointed to the "selective application of the rule of law in Russia". Michael McFaul, the US ambassador to Moscow, said: "We are deeply disappointed in the conviction of Navalny and the apparent political motivations in this trial."

Catherine Ashton, the EU's foreign policy representative, said: "The outcome ... raises serious questions as to the state of the rule of law in Russia."

Western criticism has done little to stem the Kremlin's campaign against its critics in the past.

In a statement released after the verdict, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man and now its best-known political prisoner, wrote that it was "inevitable and predictable" because of Russia's long history of jailing political opponents. Khodorkovsky was arrested 10 years ago on economic charges widely seen to be punishment for his wealth and ability to challenge Putin.

"ntil we realise that the trials of Navalny, Bolotnaya and hundreds of thousands of other guiltlessly convicted people are our trials, they are just going to keep on locking us up, one at a time," he wrote. "The era of unbelief and indifference is ending."

Mikhail Gorbachev, the last Soviet premier, issued a rare statement to condemn the verdict against Navalny, saying it "proves that we have no independent judiciary".

The Russian elite also expressed shock and anger at the verdict.

Alexei Kudrin, a former finance minister who remains close to Putin, wrote on Twitter: "The verdict seems less like punishment and more like it is aimed at isolating him from society and from the election process."

Navalny, who largely appeals to Russia's internet-connected urban youth disillusioned with Putin's increasingly authoritarian politics, was waging a campaign for Moscow mayor in snap elections called for September. He was forced to withdraw his candidacy in the wake of the verdict.

If he is to serve the entire five-year sentence, he will be released from jail only after Russia's next presidential election, in 2018.

[Tonitrus]

Meanwhile, in Russia....

Putin quietly pardons long-imprisoned oligarch/freedom fighter Mikhail Khordorkovsky, who is then subsequently absconded to Germany. 


http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/20/mikhail-khodorkovsky-free-putin-pardon-berlin

[Liep]

Terror in Stalingrad! I guess it's not really a surprise given Russia's record and how ruthless they've been in the building of the olympic city. There's probably a few hundred thousand people in Russia that would like to see Sochi 14 fail, and add to that those who'd just like to see Russia fail.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25541019

[Queequeg]

So is anyone not expecting there to be a terrorist attack at Sochi?

[Admiral Yi]

Yes.

[Queequeg]

I don't have a very high opinion of Russian security officials, and the Caucasus Emirate has been planning this for half a decade.  Also, it's in really piss-poor taste that this is on the 150th anniversary of the Circassian exodus. 

[Sheilbh]

It's definitely a risk. I suppose likelihood is how you judge Russian security service competence vs Russian security service clampdown

[The Brain]

Putin is too manly.

[Tonitrus]

Putin is too manly.

His pecs stop terrorism.

[Razgovory]

So is anyone not expecting there to be a terrorist attack at Sochi?

If there is, it's Obama's fault.