Thread: Brave New World

Russian politician Vladimir Kara-Murza sentenced to 25 years behind bars

The Moscow City Court has sentenced Russian politician and journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza to 25 years in prison.


The state prosecution asked the court at the hearing on 6 April to give him 25 years in total. In his closing speech, Kara-Murza stressed that he was placed in custody for his “political views”.


“For speaking out against the war in Ukraine. For a years-long fight against Putin’s dictatorship. For contributing to personal international sanctions against violators of human rights through the Magnitsky Act. Not only do I not repent any of these deeds, but I am also proud of them,” he said.


The trial was held behind closed doors.

Kara-Murza has been in custody since April 2022. He was facing three criminal charges: high treason, “fakes” about the Russian army, and running an “undesirable organisation” for working with Open Russia.

On 16 March, the politician’s lawyer said that Kara-Murza could not have been transferred from the detention facility to the court hearing over significant health complications. The motion to submit medical documents that specified that Kara-Murza had polyneuropathy (one of the conditions that rule out being placed in a detention centre) was denied.


On 22 February, the lawyer noted that the politician had been placed in a disciplinary cell for four days. According to him, the detention facility administration cited a violation of internal regulations as the reason.

Новая газета Европа

Well it's a free country: The high heeled war criminal is free to jail any critic that upsets him.

Lawyers locate Alexey Moskalev after several weeks, report he was severely beaten in detention in Belarus

Alexey Moskalev, who is accused of “discrediting” the Russian army and who was arrested in Belarus after fleeing house arrest, has been extradited to Russia and remanded to pre-trial detention in Smolensk. Vladimir Bilienko, a lawyer with the human rights organization OVD Info, reported Moskalev’s whereabouts after meeting with him.


Moskalev’s lawyer was unable to find out anything about his client’s whereabouts for several weeks. Bilienko said that the Federal Penitentiary Services of Russia and Belarus did not respond to requests for information about Moskalev’s location and didn’t allow Belarusian human rights activists to see Moskalev.


Moskalev reported to Bilienko that he was severely beaten and kicked on his chest and back during his detention in Belarus. He adds that the beatings tore a muscle in his right leg, and that he was struck several times in the head and had his head beaten against a wall.


Through his lawyer, Moskalev addressed activists, groups who support him, and “everyone who cares” about what has happened to him and his daughter. “Russia stands only on people like you,” he wrote.


Alexey Moskalev is the father of Masha Moskaleva, who ran into trouble with the Russian authorities after drawing an anti-war picture in sixth-grade art class. Moskalev was later charged with “discrediting” the army based on posts he had made on Russian social media networks. Moskalev escaped house arrest in late March, just before he was sentenced to two years in prison, but he was apprehended and arrested in Belarus on April 7. Masha Moskaleva was briefly a ward of the state and has since been taken in by her formerly estranged mother.

Lawyers locate Alexey Moskalev after several weeks, report he was severely beaten in detention in Belarus — Meduza

No wonder sabang flounced. This is his most embarrassing thread.

Russians snitch on Russians who oppose war with Soviet-style denunciations

MOSCOW — Parishioners have denounced Russian priests who advocated peace instead of victory in the war on Ukraine. Teachers lost their jobs after children tattled that they opposed the war. Neighbors who bore some trivial grudge for years have snitched on longtime foes. Workers rat on one another to their bosses or directly to the police or the FSB, the Federal Security Service.


This is the hostile, paranoid atmosphere of Russians at war with Ukraine and with one another. As Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime cracks down on critics of the war and other political dissenters, citizens are policing one another in an echo of the darkest years of Joseph Stalin’s repression, triggering investigations, criminal charges, prosecutions and dismissals from work.


Private conversations in restaurants and rail cars are fair game for eavesdroppers, who call police to arrest “traitors” and “enemies.” Social media posts, and messages — even in private chat groups — become incriminating evidence that can lead to a knock on the door by FSB agents.


The effect is chilling, with denunciations strongly encouraged by the state and news of arrests and prosecutions amplified by propagandist commentators on federal television stations and Telegram channels. In March last year, Putin called on the nation to purge itself by spitting out traitors “like gnats.” He has since issued repeated dark warnings about internal enemies, claiming that Russia is fighting for its survival.

MORE Russians snitch on Russians who oppose war with Soviet-style denunciations

In fairness, Russian snitches go back to the old USSR days.