8 May 2012 | Russia
Following an inauguration ceremony on Monday, Vladimir Putin is once again Russia’s president. After an absence of four years, Putin won a third term as president in controversial elections in March.
But as former President Dmitry Medvedev retook his role as Prime Minister — finalising the Putin-Medvedev job swap — Moscow was filled with thousands of policemen who blocked all central streets and central underground stations.
Putin’s opposition were also out in force. The opposition held a sanctioned march on Sunday which they believe drew a crowd of approximately 100,000 protesters in Bolshaya Yakimanka street in the centre of Moscow (some Russian news reports estimated the crowds at 20,000 people, while police said there were 8,000 people present).
The march — the largest since anti-Putin protests last December — was meant to end at a protest rally on Bolotnaya Square, but the square was blocked by metal detectors that prevented people from entering it quickly. As protesters spent what seemed like an eternity queuing up to pass through the detectors, their outrage grew. Losing hope, some sat down in the middle of the street while they waited to enter the square.
Then the protest stopped being peaceful.
Members of a radical youth group threw smoke bombs at the police, triggering mass arrests and beatings. Protesters then began throwing stones and asphalt, which hit journalists, policemen and fellow protesters.
Hundreds were arrested during the fray, including opposition leaders Sergei Udaltsov, Alexey Navalny and Boris Nemtsov. One photographer fell to his death while attempting to photograph the clashes.
Most of the arrested were released next day, but over 100 young men arrested during the protest have now been drafted into the military.
On the day of their release, protesters returned to the streets to walk peacefully with white ribbons — symbols of the latest protests — on Moscow’s central boulevards. Once again, the police blocked protesters, and attempted to force the crowds towards underground stations to go home. Protesters wandered around the boulevard in a bid to thwart the police’s attempt to disperse crowds and find a safe place to peacefully protest Putin’s return to power. Protesters finally settled in near the presidential administration. Police quickly move in to arrest protesters who remained near the building, including journalists from Kommersant, the Moscow Times and the Dozhd TV channel. RFE/RL Russian service reporters were threatened by policemen, who forced them to stop using video cameras, but managed to escape. Hundreds of arrests were made.
Leading human rights activist, Lev Ponomarev, who was arrested on 7 May for walking on a boulevard with a white ribbon, told Index that he congratulates Putin on establishing a Nazi regime on the day of his inauguration. He said the clashes between protesters and the police showed that “the Putin regime stopped pretending to respect human rights, particularly freedom of expression”.
1 May 2012 | Russia
One of Russia’s best known television news presenters Alexey Pivovarov revealed the extent of state media censorship during President Dmitry Medvedv’s final interview before he hands power to Vladimir Putin.
During the wide-ranging interview with journalists from a number of the country’s major television channels, NTV host Pivovarov said: “The hand of the state is obviously seen in controlling federal TV channels’ editorial policy.” He added:
I regularly confront certain limitations, stipulated by political suitability. This [control] prevents me from fulfilling my professional duty – informing people of current events.
Medvedev denied censorship exists, pointing out the Russian constitution forbids it. He said that it is “natural that political influence is higher on bigger channels”, adding that “the question of censorship within a channel is a question of chemistry between the management, journalists and audience”.
Media observers believe Pivovarov’s brave expose will cost him his job at NTV. Pivovarov was already notorious for confronting NTV management, after the first mass protest against allegedly fraudulent parliamentary elections on Bolotnaya square. He delivered an ultimatum to his bosses, refusing to host the evening news if the channel did not cover the rally – in the end programmed bosses capitulated.
Last week, Russian Forbes quoted anonymous sources in NTV, who alleged several leading journalists have been forced out after clashing with NTV’s head Vladimir Kulistikov over censorship. Kulistikov denied the conflict, saying he is guided by ratings and not personal attitude in his policy. The journalists involved refused to comment.
Several NTV anchors have left the station in recent weeks: Pavel Lobkov, Nikolay Kartoziya, Anton Krasovsky.
NTV is notorious for censorship. The list of programmes and stories pulled in recent months includes, among others, a broadcast about kidnappings and tortures in Chechnya; news about Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s cellmate who assaulted him in prison; and coverage student arrests during Dmitry Medvedev’s visit to the journalism department of Moscow State University.
The channel also angered Russian opposition activists by airing a documentary claiming that election fraud protesters were paid for attending rallies. The programme is the subject of several defamation lawsuits.
Russian human rights activist Olga Romanova wrote on Facebook that no journalists who confront NTV’s management and fight for the freedom of speech could continue to work at the channel. Romanova emotionally added: “And let the ones who stay there burn in hell”
27 Apr 2012 | Europe and Central Asia, Index Index, minipost
Legislation banning promotion of “gay propaganda” has passed its first reading in Siberia. The bill, which prohibits the promotion of homosexual, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender practices among minors. The bill will also be debated in a final reading by lawmakers of Novosibirsk. Similar bills have been passed in several Russian regions, including the city of St. Petersburg.
27 Apr 2012 | Russia
DDT, one of Russia’s biggest rock bands, have had several concerts in Siberian cites cancelled according to frontman Yuri Shevchuk. He has said that local authorities forbade concerts in Omsk, Yugra, Kemerovo and Tumen. Shevchuk is a noted critic of the Putin regime.
“Dodgy officials gave the orders by phone, which makes it almost impossible to sue them,” said a statement published on the DDT website. “Apparently, there isn’t enough ‘erotic patriotism’ our shows for them. But we won’t lose heart, because despair is a sin. We believe that this burly gang of zealous advocates of a “disintegrating order” will soon dissolve in the embrace of a different future,” the official statement went.
Government officials in the Siberian Kemerovo region denied the allegations, saying “this was all about business and risks”.
Yuri Shevchuk has been actively supporting the Russian protest movement, including being involved in recent mass protests for fair elections. He has also taken part in public campaigns in support of the Khimki forest defenders and opposition activist Taisiya Osipova. He also puzzled Vladimir Putin with questions about democracy, freedom of speech and assembly in 2010, during an official meeting between Putin and Russian intelligentsia representatives.
“I don’t know what exactly they are afraid of, but they are definitely afraid,” Shevchuk told Index on Censorship. “They [government officials] were scared by the winter and spring protests against election fraud and they are obviously concerned about losing their material benefits, which is most likely to happen sooner or later.”
Shevchuk added that DDT concert tour’s core idea was “philosophical” and aimed to “make each person ask himself what will happen to him and his motherland”. Authorities don’t need people to be clever and ask such questions, Yuri Shevchuk told Index.
Incidents of this nature are not new to Shevchuk. DDT had problems with concert organisation in November and December 2011 in the run-up to the parliamentary elections. At that time one of the band’s concerts was cancelled and another was rescheduled to the last day before elections — so called “silence day”, when, according to Russian law, no political activism involving propaganda is allowed.
Stopping concerts is a technique often used by the Kremlin to silence critics. Satirist writer and veteran Putin opponent Viktor Shenderovich had a concert in a Saint Petersburg theatre cancelled in April 2010 on the pretext of inspecting the building ahead of repairs.
Similarly, rock musician Vasily Shumov had problems with organising a concert in support of Russia’s leading music critic Art Troitsky, who faced several libel suits in Moscow. The management of some concert halls reported pressure from local authorities, whilst others received notification from the prosecutor’s office that they were suddenly in breach of fire regulations.
Shevchuk assured that the concert tour would continue as there are still some cities where DDT concerts were not cancelled.
