Leaving Oborona

Today I resigned as a Coordinator of Oborona after being at this position for more than five years–almost since its establishment. It was a planned decision. I want to help new leaders with fresh ideas emerge in the group. Russian opposition badly needs new faces and I don’t want to stand in their way.

As for me, I will most probably dedicate myself to a new project whose goal is to help the democratic movement in general overcome some of its worst problems. I will explain more about this project later, as it gets more specific, but anyway it shouldn’t be associated with any existing groups or movements.

I will keep doing all I can to strenghten the Russian civil society. I hope that now, I’ll be able to make it in a better way.

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Microsoft and Political Harassment in Russia

Clifford Levy’s recent piece in NYT reports how the Russian police use antipiracy laws to harass the opposition, NGOs and independent media—and how Microsoft helps it happen:

[Advocacy] group [Baikal Environmental Wave] fell victim to one of the authorities’ newest tactics for quelling dissent: confiscating computers under the pretext of searching for pirated Microsoft software.

Across Russia, the security services have carried out dozens of similar raids against outspoken advocacy groups or opposition newspapers in recent years. Security officials say the inquiries reflect their concern about software piracy, which is rampant in Russia. Yet they rarely if ever carry out raids against advocacy groups or news organizations that back the government.

As the ploy grows common, the authorities are receiving key assistance from an unexpected partner: Microsoft itself. In politically tinged inquiries across Russia, lawyers retained by Microsoft have staunchly backed the police.

It is understandable why Microsoft prefers to cooperate with the police in such cases: they don’t want to have troubles with the authorities. And despite all the statements about “commitment to respect fundamental human rights” their lawyers ad hoc in many (not all) cases prefer to support the prosecutors’ side, not the defendants’.

I see only one way to put an end to this tactic of persecution and to save the reputation of Microsoft. The software giant should go from words to deeds and really implement a program of providing licensed software to advocacy groups (whether registered with the government or not) and independent media free of charge or for symbolic price. Such a program was mentioned in the article, but there seems to be nothing more to it than just rumors; I’ve never seen or heard of anyone who actually participated in it.

It is not going to be a serious financial loss for Microsoft because such groups and media only make a relatively small portion of the market, and because many of them wouldn’t be able to pay for licensed software anyway. But this program, combined with a more responsible behaviour of the company’s lawyers, could prove that Microsoft is on the side of democracy, not repression.

Moscow Police: We Read Opposition Activists’ E-mails

Earlier this week, two Oborona activists were arrested in Moscow and later released without explanation. Head of the Information Department (i.e. official spokesperson) of Moscow police Col. Viktor Biryukov claimed that it was done to prevent some illegal protest action. He also added proudly that “the police learnt about preparation of this action while reading e-mail communications between Oborona activists.”

It’s not a news that the police monitors communications of the opposition, but it must be the first time it was officially confirmed by a high-ranking police officer. Apart from being antidemocratic and unconstitutional, it also violates the law, which puts rather strict limitations on this kind of activities.

Besides, immediately after Oborona issued a statement on this case and promised to arrange investigation of illegal activities of the Moscow police, Biryukov denied his own words. He said, “the Moscow police only work strictly within the law, and in the case of Oborona activists, their correspondence haven’t been monitored.”

The arrested Oborona activists are going to file a complaint to a prosecutor to demand investigation into Biryukov’s claims.

Putin Calls to “Bean” Protesters with Batons

Kommersant publishes a new interview with Putin, where the dictator comments on opposition rallies:

Look, all our opponents support a Rechtsstaat. What is a Rechtsstaat? It is obedience to the existing law. What does the existing law say about [Dissenters’] Marches? You need to get a permission from the authorities. Got it? Go and protest. Otherwise you don’t have this right. If you go out without having the right, get beaned with a baton. That’s it!

Putin manages to lie three times in this short passage:

1. Rechtsstaat (“правовое государство”) is not just about obedience to every law. It is also about laws being fair, about everybody being equal before the law, about having independent judiciary system etc. Do we have anything of this? No. The government adopts any laws they want, including non-constitutional, they apply them discriminatively (e.g., United Russia has on many occasions organized rallies in violation of the law but nobody dared to “bean” them for that), and they control the courts, so that the protesters can’t defend their rights there. So what kind of “obedience” can Putin demand from the opposition? I’m not even asking if Putin heard about the term “civil disobedience” and that it is often used to effectively advance rule of law.

2. Even in Putin’s law, there is no such thing as a “permission” to hold protests. The Law on Gatherings, Meetings, Demonstrations, Marches and Pickets, according to which all rallies are to be held, you only need to file a notice to local authorities that you are going to hold an action. Strategy 31 (which Putin most probably is referring to) makes it every time, complying with the law absolutely. And still, every time they get “beaned” by Putin’s riot police. So who is violating the law?

3. The last, smaller but remarkable lie: Putin also “forgot” that his own law forbids to use batons and other “special means” to disperse peaceful rallies, and the new Law on Police will forbid to “bean” people, i.e. beat them on the head. The law rightfully calls it “cruel treatment” and it doesn’t take a degree in law (which Putin kind of has) to understand why it is so. But if you yourself are a cruel person, this kind of treatment is just right: “That’s it!”

Putinjugend Is Looking for Nazi

The Russian blogosphere is discussing the Nashi’s latest faux pas: The young Putin’s followers opened an installation at the Seliger Camp that presents a number of Russian and foreign individuals as wearing Nazi hats. Among the “nazists” is the highly respectable lifelong human rights activist and vocal critic of the Kremlin Lyudmila Alexeeva as well as Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Boris Nemtsov etc. (some photos and a description in Russians are here).

It’s not surprising at all to see Nashi calling Kremlin’s opponents fascists. In fact, Nashi have been doing this ever since they themselves were compared to Hitlerjugend in April 2005 (for instance, I was an organizer of one such action). The best way to fight such accusations, they concluded, is to call oneself an Antifascist Movement. As a proverb says, attack is the best form of defense.

There is another problem that some bloggers point to. The Seliger Camp is not a Nashi’s own playground. Thanks to their leader Vasiliy Yakemenko’s position in the government they made it an official state-sponsored event. It means that taxpayers’ money have been spent on mocking and blackmouthing political opposition and human rights activists. One can wonder how it goes with the principles of pluralism and impartiality of the state embedded in the Russian Constitution. Others would just say that instead of wasting budget money on this propaganda crap, the government should have spent them on pensions or, say, repairing roads in the province.

Russian, Finnish Civic Activists Write to Their Presidents

These days I am participating in the Finnish-Russian Civic Forum in Helsinki. By coincidence (well, at least the organizers say it is a coincidence), Dmitry Medvedev and the Finnish President Tarja Halonen are also meeting not far from here. The participants of the Forum used this opportunity to adopt an address to the two:

Dear President Halonen,
Dear President Medvedev,

While you are meeting today in Finland, we, representatives of Russian and Finnish civil societies, are also gathering here to discuss how non-governmental actors can contribute to cooperation between our two nations and to building a common European space based on the principles of democracy, rule of law and human rights. We would like to draw your attention to the following concerns, which are in the center of our discussions today.

Like you, dear Presidents, we also want to see Russia a modern and prosperous country. However, we believe that without ensuring fundamental freedoms, building strong democratic institutions and an independent judiciary any technological modernization efforts will fail. It goes without saying that free and fair elections and independence of the media are essential to this process.

We want to share with you some of our immediate concerns, which require resolute actions that go beyond declarations.

In particular, we are convinced that the draft law granting new powers to the FSB contradicts not only the Russian Constitution but also recognized international norms. Therefore, it should not be signed by the President of the Russian Federation.

We are extremely concerned about continued persecution of human rights defenders, political activists, trade unionists and journalists in Russia. Instead of fighting terrorism and organized crime, thousands of law enforcement officials harass civic and political activists, often under the pretext of fighting extremism. This practice must be stopped. Murders of human rights defenders, journalists and lawyers must be effectively investigated, and perpetrators brought to justice. Impunity simply must come to an end.

Lack of fair trial and due process fundamentally undermine access to justice in Russia. This includes torture in pretrial detention centers, politically motivated trials in cases of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Platon Lebedev and others; persecution of Alexey Sokolov and Oleg Orlov for their human rights work and Valentin Urusov for his trade union activism, as well as the lack of effective investigation of murders of Anna Politkovskaya, Natalia Estemirova and Sergey Magnitsky. In the case of Magnitsky it is even more blatant because the names of those responsible for his death are well known. This list is by far not exhaustive.

Freedom of assembly continues to be denied to the Russian public. Across Europe we are united in support of Russian activists who convene peaceful gatherings in the framework of ”Strategy 31.” In a week from now, we will again express our solidarity with Russian people in Helsinki, Prague, Brussels, Berlin and other cities across the continent. We call on you, President Medvedev, to guarantee the freedom of assembly on 31 July and in the future.

We hope, President Halonen and President Medvedev, that these concerns close to our hearts will form an important part of your dialogue and that future Russian-Finnish modernization cooperation will include concrete projects in such areas as building independent judiciary, strengthening the rule of law and developing robust democratic institutions.

Russian Duma Introduces Even More Restrictions on Public Protest

From The Huffington Post.
July 12, 2010.

The building of autocracy in Russia is done in small steps. One brick was added to the wall this Friday by the State Duma. An act that further restricts public gatherings and protests in the country passed in its first hearing.

The most widely discussed “innovation” of the new act is that it obliges organizers of all actions involving cars or any other means of transportation (including trains, bycicles etc.) to de facto receive approval from the authorities. It is an apparent response to recent protests of car owners (the so-called “blue buckets”) and opposition actions in Moscow trains. The government and police found it difficult to stop or persecute participants of those protests, so now they’ll have a pretext.

Another paragraph of the act bans people who have previously (within one year) violated the law on public gatherings from organizing any public actions at all. Given the way Russian courts operate in such cases (i.e. simply approve police reports without checking them or listening to the other side), it’s going to become a handy means to prevent unwanted “troublemakers” from holding any legal protests. For instance, I will be personally affected by this law: I won’t be allowed to organize any more protests. This is an obvious violation of the Russian Constitution, by the way, as this ban is imposed without an explicit court rule. But who cares about the Constitution?

I think the world needs to know the authors of this act. Representatives of three parties signed it, namely, of United Russia, Just Russia and LDPR. The LDPR guy, Pavel Tarakanov recently called off his signature and the party surprisingly decided to vote against this act. A Just-Russia co-author, Mikhail Emelyanov, was in Unted Russia until 2007 and in Yabloko earlier.

But the most vocal apologist of the act is Sergey Markov. He is a former NDI (National Democratic Institute of the US) and Carnegie Center fellow turned Kremlin’s hardliner and United Russia’s deputy. He writes books on how to prevent “coloured revolutions” and tells Ukraine how they should teach their students history. He is also a member to the Ministry of Truth Presidential Commission for Prevention of Falsification of History to the Prejudice of Russia’s Interests and the Presidential Council for Facilitating the Development of Civil Society Institutions and Human Rights of the Russian Federation. He is a frequent guest at international conferences and meetings. So if you meet him, please ask him to try and explain how he pushes for less freedom of assembly while still calling himself a democrat.

Washington Ideas

I’m sitting in a cafe at Vienna Airport and have a few minutes for a short account of my visit to Washington DC. I was invited there to discuss the most recent Nations In Transit report by Freedom House. According to the report’s findings, Russia has experienced, unsurprisingly, the worst decline of democracy among all 29 post-Communist countries.

Before and after the discussion that took place at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, I and Vladimir Milov (a co-author of the famous Putin. The Outcome reports) met with US policymakers, human rights activists and journalists. We shared our views on the current state of affairs and dynamics of the Russian politics and suggested what can the West do to improve it. One of my ideas was to connect the possibility of US investments into Medvedev’s favourite project of Skolkovo with meeting by the Kremlin of certain conditions of rule of law, independence of the judiciary system and real fight against corruption. Both the Russian society and the American business would benefit from fulfilling fulfilling these conditions, and it would be very difficult to argue against them.

Some other ideas are connected with the positive effect that the US high-tech companies can bring about in Russia. Specifically, I’d name two things: a small one and a big one. The small one is introducing Russian-language interfaces and generally promoting in Russia services like Twitter or flickr. The language barrier is still there despite the two decades of globalization, and even renaming the “Tweet” button into “Чирикнуть” could help a lot. Having more international and independent from the government online services would make RuNet freer and more protected against possible abuse.

The big thing is about bringing more Internet, most importantly broadband, to Russian regions. The vast majority of regular Internet users in the country still reside in Moscow, St. Petersburg and some other big cities while mid-sized and small towns remain offline. Increasing penetration rate is very important to make the Internet an influential medium, in social and political sense. This task is certainly easier to put than to complete, though.

A few minutes after sharing some of these ideas at the State Department, we learned that 10 men were arrested in the US and accused of spying for Russia (fortunately, I am still at large). Looks like the honeymoon between the White House and the Kremlin is over.

People Protest Despite More Police Brutality

This was another rally at Triumfalnaya Square in a campaign for freedom of assembly (the campaign is called Strategy 31 after the paragraph 31 of the Russian Constitution that guarantees this right). Although the organizers fulfilled all legal procedures needed for arranging a demonstration, the Moscow government banned it for the seventh consecutive time. The pretext for the ban was a spoiler event organized by United Russia’s Youth Guard.

According to the media, 1000 to 2000 people came to Triumfalnaya Square despite the ban, which is more than at any of the previous rallies of this campaign. 140 to 170 of them were arrested. The protest was completely nonviolent; however the police actions were quite brutal. Most people including myself were arrested without a warning and dragged into special police buses (autozaks) by force. A lot of them were beaten and verbally insulted by the police at the time of arrest. Men and women were treated alike (at least we’ve got some equality). When I and other people at my autozak protested against our illegal arrest and cruel treatment, police officers beat us with batons and fists and strangled. I was lucky not to get only bruises and scratches; another detainee, Gazeta.ru reporter Alexander Artemyev, had his arm broken by the police at the custody. After we were already arrested, police used tear gas to disperse the crowd that remained on the square.

I was held at the autozak and then the police station for 9 hours (the law only allows for 3 hours of detention). I was charged with “participation in an illegal public event” and “disobedience to a police officer’s lawful orders.” The proofs were forged: police officers wrote false reports (their texts had been prepared by the Moscow police HQ and were similar for all the arrested) on my alleged offence; the reports were signed not by the officers who had arrested me. The penalty can be a fine and/or detention for up to 15 days.

Putin vs. Obama: What People Search

You can tell a lot about a political figure by just looking at what people want to know about her. One of the simplest ways to learn it is to use Google’s search prompt.

Let’s compare what people search for with Putin and with Obama as keywords:

Lines of the first pic translated top-down:
– “putin and kabaeva” (there are rumors of Putin having an affair with young athlete, United Russia’s State Duma deputy Alina Kabaeva)
– “putin” (plain and simple, yet less popular than the Kabaeva story)
– “putin eats children” (it was a humorous slogan coined by Oborona in 2006 after Putin’s famous kissing of a small boy’s belly)
– “putin crab” (this is a pun made of Putin’s well-known statement that he’d been working “as a slave at a galley,” which sounds in Russian close to “as a crab at a galley”)
– “putin bio” (finally, at least somebody still wants to know something about this guy)
– “dismiss putin” (a popular opposition slogan and a name of a Website where signatures for his resignment are gathered)
– “putin jew” (the guys who tend to believe that Putin is connected with ZOG apparently want to check it)
– “putin vladimir vladimirovich” (his full name, like if there are many different Putins around)
– “putin must go” (it’s quite clear, right?)
– “putin kabaeva” (they stilll want to know more about it)

The least we can say is, few users take Putin seriously. He is either a hero of tabloids, jokes and puns or someone people want to get rid of. Nobody wants to read his speeches, follow his blog (well, he has none anyway) or even learn about any of his proposals (most of them are too vague and populist to be taken seriously, too).