Posts Tagged ‘alexanyan’
A Rare Case of Justice in Russia
Good news from Russia, politically speaking, is a scarce commodity—especially if it involves opponents of Vladimir Putin. On Thursday, a Moscow City Court judge overturned the extension of pretrial detention for Vladimir Akimenkov, one of 17 people who are currently being held behind bars in the so-called “Bolotnaya case.” According to the government’s version, the mass protests against Putin’s inauguration on Moscow’s Bolotnaya Square on May 6, 2012, turned into “riots.” An independent expert commission established by human rights groups has concluded that the violence was deliberately provoked by the authorities to create a pretext for the subsequent crackdown.
Akimenkov, now 25, was arrested last June on the charges of “participating in riots” and engaging in “violence against representatives of the authorities”—charges that could land him in prison for eight years. The entire case is built on the (constantly changing) “witness testimony” of one police officer by the name of Yegorov. Akimenkov categorically denies the charges, as do most of the other “Bolotnaya prisoners.”
The activist suffers from inborn eye diseases, including a severe myopia, partial atrophy of the eye nerve, and coloboma of the iris. While in detention, he is being denied the necessary medical treatment. His eyesight is steadily worsening—now down to just 10 percent. If not released soon, Akimenkov could go completely blind. But, until now, this did not seem sufficient reason for the authorities to release him on bail before the start of the trial—nor, indeed, did the personal guaranties offered by State Duma members Ilya Ponomarev and Boris Kashin, popular writer Ludmila Ulitskaya, and human rights leaders Ludmila Alekseeva and Lev Ponomarev.
Thursday’s ruling was the first case of a successful appeal in the “Bolotnaya case.” Akimenkov’s attorneys were as surprised as anyone. Now—unless prosecutors appeal—the activist will be released on June 10th, the day his previous arrest expires.
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My father’s message to Putin from a prison camp
His hands numb after queueing in the bitter cold outside, my father squeezes into a phone booth and dials my number. Thousands of miles away in the US, I hear his dear voice, still husky from the frosty Karelian air. His tone has its usual calm; his mood is upbeat.
We were speaking just days before Vladimir Putin’s presidential inauguration, yet we weren’t talking about what his third term would mean for Russia and its citizens. That much we already know based on the 12 years of his rule. Rather, we talked about what needs to be done in the years ahead, because the future of our country is no longer up to Mr Putin; it now depends on its people. The man in charge may not have changed, but we Russians have.
For me the struggle to make Russia a freer and more just society is personal. My father, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, former head of Yukos, once Russia’s largest company, has been locked up for more than eight and a half years on false charges of embezzlement and tax evasion. His only crime was standing up to Mr Putin. He angered the Kremlin by financing opposition parties and denouncing the scale of corruption. I have not seen him since 2003, when I went to college in the US; he has never met my daughter Diana, who is now 2 years old.
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Putin’s Choice
Vladimir Putin’s return to the Kremlin as Russia’s president was always a foregone conclusion. But, when he is sworn in on May 7, he will retake formal charge of a country whose politics – even Putin’s own political future – has turned unpredictable.
Putin’s return to the presidency, following a period of de facto control as prime minister, was supposed to signify a reassuring continuation of “business as usual” – a strong, orderly state devoid of the potentially destabilizing effects of multiparty democracy and bickering politicians.
Instead, the Russian people have now challenged the status quo. Their reaction to Putin’s plan – from the announcement last September that President Dmitri Medvedev would stand aside for his mentor, to the deeply flawed parliamentary and presidential elections – and their accumulated resentment of Kremlin cronies’ massive enrichment, has placed pressure on Putin and the top-down system of government that he created.
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By typical Russian, whatabout, chutzpah double standards, yes the treatment of Bout is inhumane
Just when I thought that Russian chutzpah could never surprise me, something like this comes along:
A federal court handed Bout 25 years in prison on Thursday for conspiring to sell weapons to Columbian guerrillas who were actually US federal agents in disguise.
. . . .
The ministry claimed the US had used “unbearable conditions” in detention as a means of physically and psychologically pressuring Bout during his trial. “Long before the verdict, the authorities declared V.A. Bout a ‘merchant of death’ and little short of an international terrorist, while the prosecution was built entirely on his imputed ‘criminal intent’,” it said, adding: “The Russian foreign ministry will take all necessary efforts to return V.A. Bout to the Motherland.”
This from the country that uses psychological pressure and physical torture and literally-literally-unbearable conditions to coerce those they want to break.
Three prominent examples: I could spend days assembling many more.
Example 1. Today is the 6th anniversary of the arrest of Vasily Aleksanyan. Aleksanyan worked for Khodorkovsky and Yukos. The Russians wanted to compel him to testify against Khodorkovsky. How? Here’s how:
During Aleksanyan’s imprisonment, his health rapidly deteriorated due to HIV-related illnesses. He became almost blind and developed cancer of the liver with metastasis into the lymph nodes. He also became ill with tuberculosis.
Despite the grave medical situation demanding urgent antiretroviral treatment and chemotherapy in a hospital, he was denied both. The prosecutors also ignored three injunctions by the European Court of Human Rights on 27 November 2007, on 6 December 2007 and on 20 December 2007.According to Aleksanyan, the prosecutors are demanding false evidence against other Yukos executives from him before starting his medical treatment. On 26 December Aleksanyan made public a statement asking for help from human rights advocates.
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