Oleg Kozlovsky’s English Weblog

A briefing was held last Thursday in the US Helsinki Commission (officially named the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe) dedicated to the use of microblogs and new media to promote freedom in authoritarian countries. A lot was said about Russia, and I’ll just cite Daniel Calingaert of Freedom House, who referred to a few recent examples of how we utilized Web 2.0 to spread information about electoral fraud:

Citizens in the former Soviet Union have used new media to assert their rights and to challenge abuses of power. In Russia, for example, the Internet was the primary means for drawing attention to fraud in this month’s local elections. When observers in the Moscow district of Zyablikovo found a group of individuals hired to vote for United Russia multiple times, they used Twitter and Livejournal blogs to spread the news immediately and to publish photos of the violators.

A member of that district’s electoral commission, [Andrey Klyukin] gave an online interview to describe in detail the plan behind this fraud. The interview was widely viewed on Russian YouTube and covered by several traditional media outlets. Another group of observers published video footage of a polling-station chairman in the city of Azov as he tried to mix fraudulent ballots which had already been filled in for United Russia with legitimate ballots. This video became a hit in the Russian blogosphere and prompted a criminal investigation of the polling-station chairman. Digital media spread the news of voter fraud in Russia’s local elections and contributed to a real-world response. The news triggered a public demonstration on October 12th
in Moscow’s Pushkin Square and prompted all three opposition parties to walk out of Parliament in protest.

Authoratian governments are aware of the threat that new media pose to them and they use a wide arsenal to silent online criticism, Mr Calingaert continues:

Authoritarian regimes in the former Soviet republics and elsewhere continue to repress their citizens, and this repression extends to digital media. In Russia, for example, Internet freedom has declined significantly in recent years, as bloggers have become subject to hacker attacks, legal prosecution and physical violence. Although there is no technical filtering in Russia, officials often make phone calls to pressure web hosts or Internet service providers to remove unwanted content. The director of a leading hosting company, Master Host, admitted that his company gets about 100 requests a day to remove content from inconvenient – so-called “inconvenient” Web sites.

Full unofficial transcript

Oborona, the Russian youth democratic movement, has opened its Facebook page (in English). Welcome!

Putin’s party United Russia launched their new Web site today. It featured a large image in the center of its frontpage with a pseudo-3D city (inside the blue circle):

Front page of United Russia's Web site (clickable)

In the lower left part of the image you can see OMON (riot police) troops shoot at civilians (a peaceful demonstration?):

OMON shooting at civilians

Russian bloggers quickly found that this picture had been stolen from the Web site of Orange Label design studio. Only a few changes have been made: for instance, the United Russia’s designers changed the words on the car from “SWAT” to “ОМОН” (OMON).

PS: The image has already disappeared from the front page but it is still on their server.

Below is my latest column for RobertAmsterdam.com dedicated to Dmitry Soloviev’s case and attempts of the FSB to crack down on bloggers.

FSB: a Final Solution for Bloggers

Dmitry Soloviev, a leader of the Oborona youth movement in Kemerovo region, faces criminal charges for criticizing the “siloviki” in a LiveJournal blog. He is accused by the regional prosecutor of posting information that “incites hatred, hostility and degrades a social group of people—the police and FSB”. According to the anti-extremist legislation introduced in 2006 (more specifically, the infamous paragraph 282 of the Criminal Code), he may face up to two years imprisonment if convicted.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Moscow Times writes about Dmitry Soloviev’s case today. They quote Anton Nosik, a well-known Russian blogger and head of SUP company, which owns LiveJournal, who comments on the case: “It would be frightful if a court didn’t realize that there is no crime here”.

Dmitry Soloviev, Oborona Coordinator in Kemerovo region, is accused of “inciting hatred, hostility and degrading” the police and FSB by posting several entries in his LiveJournal blog. The criminal case based on an FSB report was opened on August 11th by the regional prosecutor office. Police and FSB have already conducted a search at Dmitry’s home and work, confiscated his computer, disks and Oborona’s printed materials, and questioned him. Dmitry may face up to 2 years imprisonment according to the anti-extremist legislation.

The entries that FSB considered “extremist” in fact contain no incitement to violence or even strong words. Here they are (in Russian):

- about a police raid on Oborona’s headquarters in Moscow;

- about FSB banning transportation of biomaterials abroad for medical purposes;

- about prosecutory and the Supreme Court refusing to rehabilitate the last Russian tzar Nicholas II, executed by the Bolsheviks;

- about me being drafted illegally into the army;

- about crimes of KGB in Soviet times.

This is not the first such case. Several weeks ago, another blogger Savva Terentyev was sentenced to a 1 year of suspended imprisonment also for “inciting hatred” against the police in a LiveJournal comment. Russian Internet community seems alarmed by these cases because it makes millions of Russian bloggers potential “extremists”. Police is one of the most unpopular insitution in the country, despised by many for human rights abuses, inefficiency and corruption. Until recently, Internet and blogs remained the last media where Russian citizens could discuss these problems. Looks like the FSB have decided to put an end to this “unnecessary” freedom.

See more on this on Oborona’s Web site (in Russian).