Communist Russia

[American Patriot]

Russia, Soviet Style

Published: June 12, 2012

Vladimir Putin knows no shame. On Tuesday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton accused Russia of supplying attack helicopters to the Syrian government. Apparently, blocking the United Nations Security Council from punishing Syria isn’t enough for the Russian president. He needs to be actively helping the Syrian dictator, Bashar al-Assad, kill his own people more efficiently and in even larger quantities.

Mr. Putin’s record at home is also shameful. Anti-Putin street protests began six months ago after a disputed parliamentary election and were re-energized by Mr. Putin’s inauguration in May. Even then, they pose no threat at all to Mr. Putin’s power or the corrupt status quo.

But Mr. Putin, who honed his bullying instincts as a K.G.B. officer, cannot tolerate any challenge or even a robust political debate. On Monday, the Kremlin sent 10 police teams across Moscow to stage early-morning raids on the homes of leading opposition figures.

Last week, Mr. Putin’s party, United Russia, muscled through Parliament a law that imposes a $9,000 fine — about what the average Russian earns a year — on people who take part in unsanctioned demonstrations or demonstrations that result in damage to people or property.

Detaining citizens arbitrarily, imposing excessive fines and harassing them because they want to exercise free speech is unacceptable.

There is a lot to protest in Russia. This includes pervasive corruption and a climate of impunity in which journalists and reform-oriented politicians can be killed and the perpetrators are never held accountable. Kremlin officials complain of “growing radicalism.” If what they mean is discontent, Mr. Putin and his policies are why.

Russia has a veto in the Security Council. And the Obama administration needs its cooperation to help rein in Iran’s nuclear program, isolate Mr. Assad of Syria and deal with a host of other issues. Mr. Putin has crossed a line with this helicopter sale to Syria. Mrs. Clinton was right to speak out. She and President Obama also need to speak out in support Russians’ right to demonstrate freely. Mr. Putin doesn’t care, but he needs to know that others do and are watching.

[American Patriot]

Russian police seize $1.7 mln from protest It Girl

The Associated Press June 12, 2012, 2:41PM ET






MOSCOW
A glamorous Russian TV host is paying an expensive price for becoming an unlikely face of the anti-Putin protest. When investigators raided her Moscow apartment, they confiscated $1.7 million she had stashed in envelopes.


A spokesman for the investigators, Vladimir Markin, said they found more than 1 million euros ($1.25 million) and $480,000 in cash during Monday's raid on Ksenia Sobchak's apartment -- one of several raids on protest leaders' homes.


Markin said they will try to determine if Sobchak paid taxes on the money, and also look into what she planned to do with it, which was in more than 100 envelopes.


Sobchak, a socialite, TV presenter and restaurant owner, insists that she had done nothing wrong and was keeping her savings at home because she doesn't trust banks. She said on Twitter that her annual income exceeds $2 million.


"I never thought that we would slide back to such repressions," tweeted Sobchak, who is described by some as Russia's Paris Hilton equivalent.
While it's not uncommon for wealthy Russians to keep large amounts of cash at home, authorities are likely to use her wealth to illustrate their depiction of the opposition as a bunch of spoiled rich kids at odds with the majority of Russia's population.


Sobchak -- the only daughter of St. Petersburg's late mayor, a mentor to President Vladimir Putin in the 1990s -- had been spared reprisals until Monday's raid.


She said that the investigator in charge of searching her apartment told her she had made a mistake in mixing up with "bad company" and that she could have avoided any trouble by marrying an officer in the secret police.


Sobchak was questioned for several hours at the Investigative Committee on Tuesday, which prevented her from attending a huge opposition rally.


She tweeted afterward that investigators had seized her passport, effectively barring her from leaving the country even though she has not been charged with any crime.

[American Patriot]

Russian Investigator Threatened Reporter, Novaya Gazeta Says


By Henry Meyer and Ilya Arkhipov - Jun 13, 2012 10:23 AM MT

Russia’s chief investigator threatened the life of the deputy editor of Novaya Gazeta, according to an open letter published today in the newspaper.

Alexander Bastrykin, head of the Russian Investigative Committee, made the threat in person after ordering Sergei Sokolov to be taken to a wood outside Moscow on June 4, according to the letter, which was addressed to him. The committee’s press service declined to comment.

Novaya Gazeta’s editor, Dmitry Muratov, said Bastrykin was responding to an article in the newspaper that criticized him over the trial of suspects for a massacre of 12 people in the southern Krasnodar region in 2010. Sokolov has left Russia for his own safety, Muratov told the British Broadcasting Corp.’s Russian-language service.

Russia is the world’s ninth most-dangerous country for journalists, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, a media freedom watchdog. Seventy-seven journalists have been killed in Russia since 2002, CPJ says.

President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the Russian leader was aware of the complaint “but it’s too early to comment on situation.”

During the investigation of the November, 2010 mass murders committed in Kushchevskaya, about 1,150 kilometers (719 miles) south of Moscow, the government examined allegations that local officials aided a group of criminals that terrorized the region since the late 1990s.

Five reporters for Novaya Gazeta have been killed since Putin came to power in 2000, including Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot in the head in her Moscow apartment building on Putin’s birthday in 2006. Politkovskaya’s work alleged corruption under the Russian leader and abuses by security forces in the mainly Muslim region of Chechnya.

To contact the reporters on this story: Henry Meyer in Moscow at hmeyer4@bloomberg.net; Ilya Arkhipov in Moscow at iarkhipov@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Balazs Penz at bpenz@bloomberg.net

[American Patriot]

So... Putin is protecting HIS borders...

Putin calls for tougher migration laws

Published: 13 June, 2012, 18:26




RIA Novosti/Vitaly Ankov

TAGS: Putin, Russia, Immigration

President Vladimir Putin has approved the toughening of Russia’s migration policies by signing a new concept in the field.



­“We now have all the legislative opportunities to implement tougher migration rules, and we must do so,” the president said during a meeting with the head of the Federal Migration Service, Konstantin Romodanovsky.



Among others measures, the new document proposes increasing the duration of the entry ban for people who have repeatedly violated Russian law or have been deported under a court ruling.



Another suggestion is to toughen punishment for organizing illegal immigration.
Putin added that all amendments in migration legislation should be subject to public discussion, including national Diasporas.


“We have to listen to and to hear all people and all viewpoints in order to take the final, balanced decision as here we are talking about social well-being of significant categories,” the president pointed out.



He instructed the official to prepare necessary legislative initiatives as soon as possible.



It is noted in the document that the new Migration concept aims at stabilizing Russia’s permanent population and providing for the country’s national security.

[American Patriot]

Well.... if think they aren't still Communist....


Russian Court Convicts Opposition Leader

Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters
Aleksei A. Navalny in court on Thursday in Kirov, Russia.

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

Published: July 18, 2013 71 Comments


Valentina Svistunova/European Pressphoto Agency Aleksei A. Navalny as the court delivered the verdict on Thursday in Kirov, Russia.




He was sentenced to five years in prison — a punishment that turned Mr. Navalny, 37, who recently declared his candidacy for mayor of Moscow, from an opposition activist to a political dissident and prisoner. Mr. Navalny used the Internet and social media as his main weapon against the state and became a personal irritant to President Vladimir V. Putin by branding his United Russia political machine as the “party of swindlers and thieves.”


Mr. Navalny’s co-defendant, Pyotr Ofitserov, a businessman and acquaintance who worked with him on the timber project, was sentenced to four years in prison. The two men, who had been accused of embezzling nearly $500,000, were also each fined more than $15,000.


Many of the judge’s findings were based on the testimony of a third man accused in the scheme, Vyacheslav Opalev, who pleaded guilty and worked with the prosecution. In his decision, Judge Sergei Blinov called Mr. Opalev's testimony trustworthy and reliable. But during the trial, he at times gave contradictory evidence, and defense lawyers were not allowed to cross-examine him. In addition, Judge Blinov barred the defense from calling 13 witnesses.


The verdict quickly reverberated throughout the highest levels of Russian government and society and even prompted some calls for boycotts of the Moscow mayoral election and future national votes. Protests broke out in both Moscow and St. Petersburg.


Aleksei L. Kudrin, a close associate of Mr. Putin and former finance minister, described it on Twitter as “looking less like a punishment than an attempt to isolate him from social life and the electoral process.”


Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the final president of the Soviet Union, said in a statement posted on his foundation’s Web site that the case was “proof that we do not have independent courts” and that “using the courts against political opponents is unacceptable.”


The crime novelist Boris Akunin, who is also a political opposition leader, said the verdict showed there was little hope to change Russia by democratic means. “Lifetime deprivation of elections — this is what the verdict means not only for Navalny but for all who thought it was possible to change this system through elections,” Mr. Akunin wrote. “As long as the Putin regime is alive, there will not be elections. The answer to the question ‘to be, or not to be’ that is to boycott or not boycott, has been answered. For other elections as well.”


Sergei Parkhomenko, a prominent Moscow radio host, said he had been skeptical that Mr. Navalny would be sent to jail because his imprisonment would undermine Russia’s electoral process.


“That’s in the past, it’s finished,” Mr. Parkhomenko wrote on Facebook. “There will be no more elections without Navalny. There will not be a legitimate mayor of Moscow without Navalny. There will not be a legitimate mayor without Navalny among the live, real competitors.”


Mr. Navalny spent much of the court session defiantly posting commentary on Twitter, including a pointed assertion that all of the evidence against him had been fabricated. He ignored an order from the judge to shut off cellphones. As Judge Blinov pronounced the sentence, after more than three hours of reciting the facts of the case and reading his decision, Mr. Navalny was still using his phone.


Mr. Navalny posted on Twitter: “Ok. Don’t miss me. And most importantly — do not be lazy.” Referring to the Russian government, he added, “The toad will not remove itself from the oil pipeline.”


As the five-year sentence was delivered, and the judge said that it could not be suspended but required actual jail time, some of Mr. Navalny’s supporters burst into tears. He was led away in handcuffs.


After the sentencing, Mr. Navalny's longtime press secretary, Anna Veduta, sat on a bench in the courthouse with tears steaming down her face. His wife, Yulia, sat beside her, dry-eyed and stone-faced but slightly pale. They remained there for about 10 minutes before leaving through a back exit.


Outside the court, Ms. Navalny said her husband’s work would not be halted and that he had been warned of a serious sentence by Sergei M. Guriev, a prominent Russian economist and supporter of Mr. Navalny who recently fled to France fearing for his own freedom.


“Aleksei was as ready for this as one can be,” Ms. Navalny said. “If anyone believes that Aleksei’s investigations will cease, that is not the case. The Fund for the Fight Against Corruption will continue working as before.”


However expected the jail term might have been, the personal cost is steep. The Navalnys have two young children and at times during her remarks, Ms. Navalny choked back tears.


In Moscow, even before the sentence was announced, supporters and the police began to gather at Manezh Square near the Kremlin where backers of Mr. Navalny had planned to hold an unsanctioned rally. More than 7,000 people had responded to an announcement of the event on Facebook to say that they would attend.


Before being led out of the courtroom by guards, Mr. Navalny turned and hugged his wife and shook hands with some supporters.


The guilty verdict was widely expected, and prosecutors had demanded a six-year prison term. Unless it is reversed on appeal, which seemed unlikely, the verdict stood to disqualify Mr. Navalny from the Moscow mayoral election, which will be held in September. The incumbent, Sergei S. Sobyanin, is widely favored to win.


At the headquarters of Mr. Navalny’s mayoral campaign in Moscow, several dozen volunteers who had signed up in June after seeing posts on social networking sites, glumly watched a live webcast from the court.


“Everybody is in shock,” Roman Rubanov, a deputy campaign manager said, after watching Mr. Navalny hug his wife and be led away by bailiffs. “Everybody was expecting the worst, of course. But it is one thing to know it will happen and another to see how it actually happens.”


Mr. Rubanov added, “Everybody is amazed, bewildered and disappointed and women have tears in their eyes.”


Red balloons printed with the word “Navalny” festooned the headquarters. A poster hung on the wall proclaiming his campaign slogan, “Change Russia, start with Moscow” — a reference to Mr. Navalny’s previously stated ambition of running for president one day. Stacks of fliers sat on a bench.


Mr. Navalny was officially registered for the mayoral race on Wednesday afternoon, less than 24 hours before his conviction. A convicted criminal cannot run for public office in Russia, but officials were still sorting through the technicalities. Some said Mr. Navalny would not be disqualified until after an initial appeal, which could take up to several months. Leonid Volkov, his campaign manager, said the campaign had not yet decided whether it would continue after Thursday’s verdict.


Supporters at the headquarters said the verdict was purely political.


“I’ve been following his activities for a long time and when I saw on Facebook that he was looking for help, I volunteered,” Dmitri Slukin, a 29-year-old telecommunications industry manager who was at the headquarters Thursday, said. The judge convicted his candidate, Mr. Slukin said, because “the people in power are afraid of what Aleksei does.”


Galina A. Koposova, a 20-year-old engineering student who volunteered to help over the summer, said “it is obvious this case is political. Navalny bothers Putin. He is a man who can really compete with Putin.”


Campaign workers followed Mr. Navalny’s Twitter messages from the courtroom, which were dripping with his characteristic acerbic humor. Lest anybody think he was shaken, Mr. Navalny posted a picture of Mr. Putin smiling and wrote, “I see that only we two are listening to this verdict without unnecessary sadness.”


In the hours ahead of the verdict, Mr. Navalny was defiant. In a blog post on Wednesday, he railed against the government. “The current power — is not a healthy big fish, but a puffer fish or a Latin American toad, which puffs itself up when it senses danger, using TV to spread lies from prostitute TV hosts,” he wrote.


He also exhorted his supporters to continue his work even in his absence. “You understand what is to be done, understand how it must be done, and understand for what it must be done,” he wrote. “The main thing is be brave, to cast off laziness and do it. You actually don’t need any sort of special leadership.”


“There is no one else but you,” he wrote in closing. “If you are reading this, you are the resistance.”


The charges that Mr. Navalny faced, dating from his brief role as an adviser to the regional governor here, were considered shaky by some observers. A previous investigation had resulted in them being thrown out as baseless.


The Kremlin, however, made little effort to mask the political motivation of prosecution. A spokesman for the federal Investigative Committee, Vladimir Markin, declared publicly that Mr. Navalny had made a target of himself through his political activities criticizing public officials.


“If a person tries with all his strength to attract attention, or if I can put it, teases authorities — ‘Look at me, I’m so good compared to everyone else’ — well, then interest in his past grows and the process of exposing him naturally speeds up,” Mr. Markin said.


Mr. Navalny arrived at the Leninsky Court here in downtown Kirov on Thursday looking tense and carrying a black duffel bag, presumably containing personal items given the possibility that he could be sent to jail immediately. His wife arrived with him, carrying two bottles of water. Mr. Navalny clutched his own bottle with one hand at the defense table. His other hand, predictably, held his smartphone.


In a message from the court, he mocked the stack of paper Judge Blinov was reading from “even with text on both sides,” Mr. Navalny wrote. His wife stood in the second row, wearing an elegant red skirt and white blazer, and smiled tightly as she also tapped on her phone. At one point, Mr. Navalny looked at one of the cameras providing a live feed from the courtroom and flashed his pinkie and index fingers in a sort of victory sign.


Several leaders of the political opposition traveled from Moscow to be in the courthouse, including Ilya V. Ponomarev and Dmitry G. Gudkov, who are members of the Russian Parliament, and Ilya Yashin, who along with Mr. Navalny helped organize a series of big street protests in Moscow after disputed parliamentary elections in December 2011.
Judge Blinov interrupted the reading of his decision to note that half of the courtroom was sending messages and he ordered that all phones be turned off. No one obeyed, certainly not Mr. Navalny who posted another message on Twitter joking that he was trying to convince everyone standing in his row to do the wave — as in a stadium crowd — “while trying not to talk.”


As the verdict was delivered in Kirov, 600 miles away, Grigory Saksonov, 57, an electrician looking for work, was standing on Manezh Square in Moscow holding a sign that said : “Judge Blinov, you’re a donkey.” He was stunned to learn that Mr. Navalny received five years; saying he had expected a suspended sentence. “If it’s a real sentence, then it is two-faced meanness. So, Navalny will sit in jail, and the government will feast its eyes.” He added, “It was always a political process, even from the beginning.”

Alexandra Kozlova, Ellen Barry, Andrew E. Kramer, Andrew Roth, Anna Tikhomirova and Noah Sneider contributed reporting from Moscow.

[American Patriot]

Jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny released

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Thousands of supporters of Alexei Navalny take to the streets of downtown Moscow to demand his release. (Sergei L. Loiko / Los Angeles Times / July 19, 2013)

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By Sergei L. Loiko July 19, 2013, 1:38 a.m.

MOSCOW -- Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and his former business partner, Pyotr Ofitserov, were released from custody Friday, one day after their conviction in an controversial embezzlement case, Interfax news agency reported. A district court in the regional capital of Kirov sentenced Navalny and Ofitserov to five years and four years in prison, respectively, and a $15,000 fine each for embezzling the equivalent of $530,000 from a local timber company in 2009.
Navalny, a popular blogger, lawyer and officially registered opposition candidate in the Moscow mayoral election set for Sept. 8, never pleaded guilty in the case and declared the charges bogus and the trial politically motivated.
In the last few years, Navalny has been one of the most outspoken critics of Vladimir Putin, publicly calling the Russian leader a thief, and his party, United Russia, a group of swindlers and thieves. The criticism contributed to the ruling party's humiliating 50% showing in parliamentary elections in December. Many experts considered Navalny’s conviction a result of Putin’s vengeance.
In the wake of the verdict and sentencing, massive protests shook a number of major cities in Russia on Thursday night. In Moscow and St. Petersburg, thousands of people demanding Navalny’s release took to the streets and tried to block traffic. Police intervened and arrested dozens.
At the same time, the United States and a number of other Western governments expressed concern with what they termed an example of biased, politically motivated justice.
The White House on Thursday said Navalny's conviction was "politically motivated" and part of a "disturbing trend of government actions aimed at suppressing dissent and civil society in Russia."
"The numerous procedural shortcomings in this case also reinforce our broader concerns about rule of law in Russia," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said.
On Friday morning, the Russian General Prosecutor’s Office hurriedly appealed the imprisonment of the two men, and the Kirov regional court ruled that both should be released while they appeal the verdict. Navalny was freed on a pledge that he not travel outside Moscow.
Upon his release, Navalny thanked his supporters “for making them release me" and Ofitserov.
“Even if it is temporary, let’s use this time to shake up the swindlers,” Navalny wrote in his Twitter account Friday morning. “We took a deep breath and down to work again. ... Agitation, leaflets, everything.”
Under the pressure from protesters at home and concerned governments abroad, the Kremlin had to urgently remedy the situation, said Andrei Piontkovsky, a senior researcher with the System Analysis Institute in Moscow.
“By putting his key opponent in prison yesterday, Putin demonstrated that he is vengeful and not too smart as a politician,” Piontkovsky said in an interview with The Times. “Today, by initiating Navalny’s release, Putin looks like a weak politician in the eyes of the general public consisting largely of his supporters.”

[Phil Fiord]

“If you are reading this, you are the resistance.”

This is interesting as it is an adapted quote used in Terminator: Rise of the Machines. John says over the radio, "If you can hear me, you are the resistance".

[American Patriot]

Not so sure he "adapted" it. I suspect he never saw the Terminator.

[Phil Fiord]

That particular film was from 1995. He had to have seen it.