Convictions send message: Putin is back

16 Mar 12 | Russia

A Moscow court has sentenced businessman Alexey Kozlov to five years in prison for fraud. The verdict is seen as a slap in the face to civil society, which demanded justice and freedom for Kozlov on the latest mass rally for fair elections in Moscow.

Alexey Kozlov was accused of stealing leather company shares using a fradulent scheme in 2006. He claimed he was innocent and his case was trumped-up by former business partner and senator Vladimir Slutsker. Slutsker denied the allegations.

Kozlov’s case was the second “economical” case to draw the widest response after the case of former YUKOS oil company head Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Kozlov was arrested in 2008 and then sentenced to eight years in prison on fraud charges after having quit his business with Vladimir Slutsker. He spent three-and-a-half years in prison, until in September 2011 his wife — noted Russian journalist and human rights activist Olga Romanova — gained a Supreme Court order for the case to be retried.

This was celebrated as a victory of human rights activism. Romanova has become the voice of prisoners throughout Russia and created an NGO for relatives of businessmen whose cases were fabricated by their influential business partners and corrupted law enforcement authorities. For all of them Kozlov’s release in September became an example of how rights activism can be rewarded for its efforts.

Thousands of people supported Kozlov on a rally on 10 March. Hundreds of them gathered near the court — but only to shout “Shame!” when Kozlov was arrested and convoyed out of the court. The case was retried, but the corrupted judicial system remained.

Alexey Kozlov will be set free in a year and a half, after the court took into consideration three and a half years already served.

Olga Romanova was in charge of the recent Russian rallies against election fraud. She has been one of the most remarkable public critics of Vladimir Putin. Fellow human rights activists believe her husband’s sentence is also the authorities’ “punishment” to her for her activism and independence.  Activists added that this is clearly an attempt to silence her.

Romanova isn’t the only one authorities are trying to silence.

Another member of Pussy Riot punk feminist group Irina Lakhtionova has been arrested on the charge of hooliganism. She is suspected of being involved in an anti-Putin performance in Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral. As Pussy Riot’s lawyer Nikolay Polozov told Index on Censorship, this goes in the line with repressive politicy against political and civil activists. He is planning to file complaints to European Court of Human Rights.

Finally, on the same day Left Front movement leader Sergey Udaltsov was sentenced to ten days of administrative arrest for allegedly having neglected a policeman’s order after a rally on 10 March. He has announced a hunger strike in protest.

Another opposition leader, Alexey Navalny, was fined 1000 roubles (£21) for breaking the rules of holding rallies, during a mass protest against allegedly fradulent presidential elections on 5 March.

Earlier this week the court refused to release two arrested Pussy Riot members Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alekhina and activist Taisiya Osipova, from The Other Russia.

Most frequent bloggers’ believe these cases have one message – Vladimir Putin is back.

 

Fake photos and subversion allegations used as a way to compromise Kremlin critics

13 Jan 12 | Russia

The first weeks of January have been marked with a number of public moves, which opposition activists say are aimed at smearing them.

Russian general prosecutor Yuri Chaika has alleged that participants of two historically large rallies for new, fair parliamentary elections in December were financed by foreigners “for dishonorable aims”.

“Some individuals using people as an instrument for achieving their political goals, which are indeed dishonorable, is intolerable. And money for this comes from sources outside Russia,” Chaika said in an interview to state-owned daily Rossiyskaya Gazeta.

A journalist interviewing Chaika said that the protesters “had insulted the authorities” and asked whether they would be punished, prompting the general prosecutor to stress that defamation decriminalisation “doesn’t mean permissiveness and the lack of responsibility for slander and insult”. The punishment is still “quite sensible financially”, Chaika warned.

Novaya Gazeta has asked Yuri Chaika to provide documents proving his allegations, along with explanations of what Russian legislation had been violated.

Chaika’s allegations go in line with the Kremlin tendency to claim that opposition leaders and activists critical of Kremlin are financed “by the West in order to destabilise the situation in Russia”. Soon after the first rally on 10 December prime-minister Vladimir Putin said the protesters had been paid to attend the rally. Many joked about the allegation at the second rally on 24 December, as they held posters  with “Hillary Clinton paid us in kind”, “Where’s the money, State Department?”, and “I’m here for free”. Similar allegations were made against Russia’s leading election monitor — GOLOS Association by the state-owned NTV channel, days before parliamentary elections.

Chaika’s interview was preceded by a scandal involving the publication of a fake photo of Alexey Navalny, one of the opposition leaders. Pro-Kremlin youth movements in Ekaterinburg circulated a newspaper entitled “Arguments and Facts. Ural Digest” with a photo of Navalny with disgraced Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky. The caption said Navalny “had never concealed” that he had received financial backing from the oligarch. The issue also said that Vladimir Putin’s United People’s Front — an organisation initiated to broaden United Russia’s electorate — contributed to it. Both the newspaper’s head and editor-in-chief claimed they didn’t release the issue, and denied any role in creating it. More controversial statements came from the United People’s Front members, but nobody can be sure who is responsible for the issue.

Alexei Navalny proved the photo was doctored by publishing the real image in his blog, where he is pictured with Russian tycoon and presidential candidate Mikhail Prokhorov. “What an entertaining job it must be to cut one oligarch and pasting in another” – Navalny wrote ironically in his blog.

Just like Putin’s allegations, the fake photo was used as a joke by tens of thousands of people participating in protest rallies against alleged fraud on elections. Many of them further photomontaged the photo, replacing Berezovsky with Putin, Stalin, aliens and even Harry Potter’s nemesis Lord Voldemort. Protestors agreed that Kremlin’s traditional allegations against its critics can no longer be taken seriously.