2024-02-03 21:44:03
At the moment in Moscow, flowers and critical words are enough to get you taken to the nearest police station. On Saturday, the “Putj domoi” (English: “Way Home”) movement held a protest at the Kremlin wall. The movement was started by the wives of mobilized Russians. On Saturday, they placed flowers on the grave of the unknown soldier to mark the 500th day of Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin’s mobilization. At the event, the activists also spoke out for peace as quickly as possible.
According to the independent internet portal Sota, 27 people who took part in the protest were taken away and taken to the nearest police station. Most of those arrested are said to be men. According to the report, foreign journalists are also among them. The recent arrests are just a small piece of the puzzle in a larger picture of state repression in Russia.
Moscow: Arrests during protest against war
27 people were arrested in front of the Kremlin in Moscow during protests by members of the Russians mobilized for the war in Ukraine and taken to the nearest police station.
Five and a half years in prison for social media post
At the end of January, a 72-year-old pensioner was sentenced to five and a half years in a prison camp for sharing two social media posts about the Ukraine war. The accusation: intentionally spreading “false information” about the Russian army. The Russia expert from the University of Innsbruck, Gerhard Mangott, was surprised at the high penalty in an ORF.at interview: “It is an indication that the spiral continues and the law on extremism and discrediting the Russian army is being applied even more strongly becomes.”
So far, the sentence has usually been higher for people who are more relevant to political discourse. That is no longer the case for the pensioner. The Russian leadership must be careful not to overreach, said Mangott: “The question is whether, with punishments of this magnitude, the purpose of intimidation is still effective or whether the anger is greater.”
Laws and their application tightened
Since the beginning of the war, existing criminal laws have been tightened and applied more strictly, and new ones have been added, such as the law criminalizing discrediting the Russian armed forces. The local politician Alexei Gorinov was the first to be sentenced to seven years in prison in July 2022. Gorinov, who was seriously ill in prison, had spoken of a war against Ukraine and did not use Moscow’s official term of a “special military operation”.
Thousands more followed. There have been more than 8,400 cases since the law came into existence – many have ended with sometimes high prison sentences and some with fines, says Mangott. The phrase “Never again war” alone – written in snow – earned a man ten days in prison.
Prosecution for rainbow flag in photos
Last April, maximum sentences for treason increased to life, for sabotage to 20 years and for “international terrorism” to 12 years. The extremism law has also been applied more stringently since the beginning of the second year of the war, said Mangott. This also affects employees of the organization of the well-known imprisoned opposition figure Alexei Navalny. His organization was classified as extremist.
IMAGO/TASS/Sergei Bobylev The opposition activist Kara-Mursa was sentenced to 25 years in prison and is in solitary confinement in a penal camp in Siberia
Two 17-year-olds were recently arrested for suspected sabotage on behalf of Ukraine. They are said to have set fire to a railway equipment box. You face up to 20 years in prison.
On the same day, a woman was charged because her Instagram profile featured photos of a rainbow flag. This can be punished with up to 15 days in prison. Last November, the Supreme Court issued a ban on the “international LGBTQ movement” because of “extremism.” For individuals, this can mean years in prison.
Confiscate assets if there is “false information”
The law on foreign agents, which is intended to “silence people,” has also been expanded, said Mangott. In future, all organizations and individuals that receive support from abroad or are under some form of “foreign influence” can be declared “foreign agents”.
At the end of January, the Russian lower house of parliament approved a draft law that would allow authorities to confiscate money and valuables from convicted critics of the Russian army. The proposed penalties of up to 15 years for “false information” about the army were not enough, said the chairman of the lower house, Vyacheslav Volodin. The law should also apply to people convicted of publicly inciting “extremist activities”.
Kara-Mursa in Isolationshaft
The extent of prison sentences was increased drastically in the second year of the war. Opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Mursa was sentenced to 25 years in prison in April 2023 on charges of spreading “false information” about the army and treason. In January, according to his lawyer, he was transferred to another penal colony in Siberia for four months in solitary confinement. The reason for this was that he did not get up from the bed on command. Kara-Mursa told his lawyer in writing that the order was never given.
AP/Russian independent news outlet SOTA telegram channel There were rare anti-regime protests in the republic of Bashkortostan in January. Several participants were arrested.
There are hardly any open protests in Russia. The protests in support of an opposition figure in the Russian republic of Bashkortostan with several thousand participants were all the more extraordinary. These were denied by the Kremlin. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there were “no mass unrest or mass protests” there. Several demonstrators were arrested.
Opposition lacks figureheads
The repression of the past few years is having an effect. There is still opposition at the lower and middle levels, for example among city and local councils, says Mangott. But there is no name that could unite the liberal opposition to Putin. Opposition figureheads are dead, in exile or in prison.
Mangott said, not very optimistically, that he had no expectation that anything would change in the domestic political dynamic. The liberal opposition is highly fragmented and without a profile. The social-liberal opposition party Yabloko still exists, but has lost its appeal, according to the Russia expert: “The party is not managing to rally the dissident voices behind it.” Navalny, who is sentenced to more than 30 years in prison, has Even from prison, he has more influence than many other opposition politicians.
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