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Russia's Crackdown on Free Expression in 5 Cases

Rogue Valley

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Russia's Crackdown on Free Expression in 5 Cases

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Ivan Safronov in court.

7/22/20
Russia under President Vladimir Putin has grown increasingly intolerant of voices that challenge the conservative values championed by the Kremlin. In one prominent trial, a verdict is expected Wednesday for leading Gulag historian Yury Dmitriyev accused of abusing his adopted daughter. Allies say the authorities opened the probe to silence his work on Soviet-era mass killings. Ahead of the ruling, here are five of the most high-profile cases being brought against prominent cultural figures, activists and journalists who have challenged the authorities.

Gulag historian - Yury Dmitriyev, a historian in northwestern Russia who spent decades exhuming mass graves of people killed under Soviet leader Josef Stalin, was arrested on child pornography charges in 2016. A court acquitted him — a rarity in Russia — in 2018 but a higher court reversed the ruling and he was slapped with a charge of sexually assaulting a minor. Yesterday a Russian court sentenced Mr. Dmitriyev to 3½ years in prison.

Leading ex-journalist - The Federal Security Services (FSB) this month arrested on treason charges Ivan Safronov, a former journalist who had recently joined Russia's space agency as an adviser. The case, which will be held behind closed doors, could see Safronov jailed for two decades.

Progressive director - A Moscow court last month handed a suspended sentence to acclaimed film and theater director Kirill Serebrennikov accused of embezzling government funds in a case that sparked outrage at home and abroad. Serebrennikov and several co-defendants were found guilty of defrauding the Culture Ministry out of 129 million rubles (about $2 million) designated for a project called Platforma.

LGBT activist - A young LGBT activist in the Far East, Yulia Tsvetkova, is facing six years in prison on charges of distributing pornography to minors after posting colorful drawings of vaginas online. She has said authorities are using the propaganda and pornography charges to punish members of the LGBT community in Russia unfairly. Her case has sparked an international campaign by artists and poets in her support.

'Justifying terrorism' - Journalist Svetlana Prokopyeva this month was found guilty of "justifying terrorism" over a column she wrote about a 2018 bombing at the FSB headquarters in the northern Arkhangelsk region that left three officers injured. In the article, she criticized the FSB's growing influence as well as the increasingly oppressive political climate under Putin.

Putin has been rapidly snuffing out personal freedoms since the Constitutional referendum.
 
Still defending those found guilty of serious crimes, including sexual offence against minors?


You sure this is the message the CIA wants to give?
 
Still defending those found guilty of serious crimes, including sexual offence against minors?

You sure this is the message the CIA wants to give?

Still defending the pariah Putin regime as always? Anyone accidentally "fall" out of a window in Moscow today?
 
Still defending the pariah Putin regime as always? Anyone accidentally "fall" out of a window in Moscow today?

If I think across the globe, it is the old West which is the pariah. The Trump regime is a real international joke.


Russia has excellent relations across the world except with western Europe and North America.
 
The police conducted searches of the people posting politically incorrect comments in Facebook. Criminal cases have been opened against 17 people for inciting hatred and ethnic hatred.
But there are no single pickets, cartoons and Internet posts with outrage about this among russian or western "civil right fighters"...

Because it's happened in Germany.
 
If I think across the globe, it is the old West which is the pariah. The Trump regime is a real international joke.

I agree. Trump is a pariah. But he'll be gone on January 20. You're stuck with Putin until 2036.

Russia has excellent relations across the world except with western Europe and North America.

Russia was booted out of the G8, and has been sanctioned since 2014. The Putin regime is hot garbage.
 
Today a russian liberal can become famous in only three ways:
- if he writes nasty things;
- if he was arrested;
- if he was beaten up.
Other way, for example, by being useful for society, he is simply not able to become famous.
 
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