Reforming Russia?

[mendeleyev]

Regarding Muzh's photo:

Вешать лапшу на уши is probably the best answer to Shadow's poll question. The current government would love for the average Russian, and many do, to believe that the opposition is solely based on traitors and foreign funding.

The problem comes when a ruling power labels anyone opposed to government as a traitor. At that point democracy has ceased to exist. To say that poll results are only the result of outside influence makes a mockery of what does happen to those who join the opposition.

I know many inside government who are worthwhile officials and I know many of the opposition who are equally worthwhile. The real problem is that the opposition has no legitimate voice/role in society outside the staging of demonstrations. Were there real voices of opposition in society and the Duma, you'd have a working democracy. That is easy to fix but it won't be fixed for fear that those in power could lose their positions and wealth.

[Shadow]

There is opposition in the Duma, and they regularly speak. That the West does not take them serious (not unline the government) does not mean they do not exist. When speaking of opposition often a single, rather small, protest party is meant.

To have a voice the opposition must be voted for in a democratic process.
As long as they do not get enough votes, the opposition has no democratic ground to be heard. That is a truth that hurts many of the people demonstrating.

When I run the names of opposition leaders through Google, it seems like the opposition is a mix of Stalinists, Liberals, Extreme right and Socialists. This means their political ideologies are from far left to far right of the political spectrum. Apart from a common goal to remove the powers that be, ask yourself what can make people so far apart in ideology cooperate.
A second, even more important question, is how do they suppose to continue their cooperation should they ever achieve their goal of government power?

For Westerners the names are known only for their opposition against the current government, however one can assume that in Russia their full background is known. This knowledge often causes a disparity in how someone is viewed. I know of one example where a politician who was once convicted for election fraud is now calling out for honest elections.
To those knowing his past it seems like a wolf requesting freedom for sheep.

[Darth_Budda]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_the_Russian_Federation

Would the Communist party be considered the largest opposition party of Russia?

What is their current percentage of government?

Latest data on wiki says 20%

[mendeleyev]

Shadow has a point that the Left Front and the Communists are among the larger groups and not exactly soul mates in some policies. However when it comes to government, and I'd shiver at the thought as those two could form a coalition in theory, although such coalitions have been banned.

The opposition in the Duma for the most part is token and there for window dressing.

There are some decent and good people among the opposition and while the Kremlin keeps shouting from the rooftops that no viable opposition candidates exist, there are a number of former high level Putin cabinet members who are highly qualified for government service and could lead a government.

Personally, I'd rather see any changes happen at the ballot box as an "Arab Spring" is the last thing that should happen in Russia. At the same time the real question is whether given the level of official corruption is whether an honest election could be held and recognized?

[mendeleyev]

The Mendeleyev Journal

(Воронеж/Voronezh, Russia)
TV Network дождь ("Rain") is reporting that environment protesters and security troops have clashed outside a nickel mining operation in the Voronezh region. Cell phone video show that local police assisted with the beatings as protesters stood at the entrance to a mining operation and attempted to take photos of the gated area guarded by private security.


Video and photos revealed that protesters had been beaten with police batons, electric stun guns and bricks.  The video above also shows that as the fighting continued, protesters tried to enter the mining area by scaling fences and rushing security guards.



Eyewitnesses reported that several activists suffered from fractured skulls and at least ten other people were taken to local hospitals with serious injuries.

Environmentalists claim that the mining operations will damage the local environment, in particular harming wildlife and polluting the water supply. Local leaders of the Novokhopersk district say that the mining operation will create jobs and help with the development of agriculture and tourism.



Environmental activists have protested against the start of production of nickel deposit mining in Elan Novokhopersk area by camping at the entrance. The Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company, developer of the field, says that nickel can be mined without threat to the environment and will lead to economic growth in the region.


!

(photos:  Rain TV network)


Note: While reporting the event, the Mendeleyev Journal takes no side in the issue above.

[mendeleyev]

(The Mendeleyev Journal)

On 6 March 2012 thousands of Russian protesters filled the streets of Moscow to protest the election of Vladimir Putin to the presidency. One young lady in particular stood out to me, Maria Baronova. A tall and striking figure, she has been the subject of a number of magazines, Maria who is a single Mom stood up to the Russian riot police on a day when hundreds were arrested and many injured at protesters and riot police clashed later in the day.

When I first saw the scene of Maria standing there, it made me smile. Not only a very pretty lady, she is strong and determined. I'd not want to get on her bad side, that is for certain.

What really made me smile was her determination to stand her ground and recite sections of the Russian Federation Constitution to a group of young recruits in training. As events had not yet turned violent at that point, the recruits were on the front lines for training purposes. That would change later in the day but at this point the more seasoned OMOH Interior Ministry troops were lined up in formation to protect the Kremlin, behind the younger men.

As Masha Green wrote so well in the Moscow Times later, "(there was) Maria, standing before the soldiers and reciting Article 31 of the Russian Constitution, which guarantees freedom of assembly. A command sounds: “Step forward!” The soldiers step forward. Maria refuses to retreat and continues to recite the law. The command sounds again. Now she is wedged among the troops. Still, she keeps going."





Officers commanding the police line tried to convince her to step aside only to be lectured on Article 31, the section of the Russian Federation Constitution that guarantees free speech and freedom of assembly. When one officer tried to convince her that they must obey the president, Vladimir Putin, she lectured him on the institutions of democracy.




Maria addresses a protest rally with son at her side. (foto: Anton Matyukhin)

So today as Maria awaits charges of inciting riots and unrest, I worry about her little son who will go to live with his father if/when Maria is sentenced. Young children need strong mothers in their lives but a mere 1% of Russian court cases end in acquittal. Nonetheless, Maria believes that the struggle to reform Russia is a sacrifice she must make for her son.

The protest of May 2012 is more than a year removed but Maria has become a committed activist. Oh, and how is she getting along with those young recruits in training?




Maria Baronova, August 2012. (foto: Konstantin Borodin)

It appears that the power of belief in a Constitution may resonate with those who have ears to listen.

[mendeleyev]

A March to Release Political Prisoners:

Organizers held the march on 12 June, the day Russia celebrates its sovereignty after the Soviet Union. Critics said that hardly anyone would show but when the day was over, somewhere between six thousand and ten thousand protesters took to the assigned parade route to protest the rule of Vladimir Putin and to demand the release of Putin's political prisoners.



Frankly we're tired of the counting game that goes on with each protest. Police put out one number, which is always far lower than reality while the opposition releases a much higher number than may be realistic. So, it is up to news organizations such as the AP, Reuters and the BBC to offer an accurate count and they do have specialists for such things. For what it is worth, the news organizations place the numbers between eight and ten thousand.

There were no major incidents and anti-corruption blogger Aleksei Navalny and other opposition leaders organized and led the march. Navalny is on trial on embezzlement charges. His defense lawyers say the charges are politically motivated. Navalny recently began a nationwide newspaper called За Навальногo! meaning the "For Navalny Gazette" which has been confiscated in several cities by police authorities.

The government claimed that the march was without incident however closer examination of the video below shows otherwise as police confronted and arrested several leaders of the event.





Marchers held banners and demanded release of 27 persons who were arrested after a protest turned violent on the eve of Putin's inauguration. Sixteen of those defendants remain in jail pending trial. Witnesses say that several of them were pulled out of the crowds at random in a show of force to discourage Russian citizens from joining the opposition.



Names of the prisoners:

Andrey Barabanov
Ilya Guschin
Alexandra Dukhanina
Denis Lutskevich
Stepan Zimin
Maria Baronova
Alexandr Kamensky
Nikolay Kavkazsky
Fyodor Bakhov
Mikhail Kosenko
Rikhard Sobolev
Leonid Kovyazin
Sergei Udaltsov
Oleg Arkhipenkov
Dmitry Rukavishnikov
Alexander Margolin
Oleg Polikhovich
Elena Kokhtareva
Leonid Razvozzhaev
Sergey Krivov
Aleksey Gaskarov
Maxim Luzyanin (has already been convicted and sent to a correctional labour camp for 4.5 years).

[Vasilisa]

Next poll question: What percentage does believe the opposition is full of traitors and foreign funding ?

I do.
Every party has some funding behind.

As for the people in the pictures I have tried to listen to their slogans, etc, I saw and heard nothing more or less intelligent so far. If you have any desire to support gay marriages, naked dancing in churches and other kind of immorality and insanity go ahead, there are always people that don't like something in any country, I'd stuck to my traditional Christian believes and more or less traditional moral values. I know it's not fashionable today and it's fashionable to marry lesbians, run along the streets bras off, call me a not fashionable person then

We have a lot of different meetings in my city, too, as soon as these people don't destroy property they are not put in any prisons. But of course they prefer to destroy a car or two, get naked in public, get arrested for that, so the western propaganda would have an opportunity to write that there's no freedom of the word in Russia and anti-Putin parties' members are put in jail.... got tired of them, so going back to work, time to do something useful for the country.

[Ooooops]

... I'd stuck to my traditional Christian believes and more or less traditional moral values...

Oh yes, lots of wars were (and are) fought in the name of religious believes.   

[mendeleyev]

Not that it is a surprise to anyone in the know, but most Russians have been told that Georgia started the fighting and Russia entered the war to protect their citizens in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.Russian authorities have stuck to that story line for five years.

Until last week.

In a television interview, Russian President Vladimir Putin admitted to striking first saying that Russia attacked Georgia because the Georgian government was smuggling terrorists across Abkhazia to the Russian border near Sochi. As columnist and radio talk host Yulia Latynina explains, the part about Georgia smuggling terrorists across a disputed territory virtually controlled by Russia  would have been quite a feat.


(photo: Semyon Khorunzhy)

What is surprising however is that Mr. Putin would let it slip that Russia started the fighting.

Here is more from Yulia Latynina:

During an interview on RT television last week, President Vladimir Putin made a truly sensational statement by revealing the real reason for the Russia-Georgia war of August 2008. Apparently, Russia delivered a preventative strike to liquidate international terrorists who were sent by Georgian forces to penetrate Russian territory. Putin said the terrorists advanced to positions 30 kilometers south of Sochi before they were eliminated.

"About six or seven years ago when we had to attack Georgian territories, those were not just strikes on Georgia. We targeted militant groups that came very close to Sochi. … Georgian police vehicles were transporting the militants to the Russian border. So we had to take some preemptive measures. And I informed the president [Dmitry Medvedev] about this," Putin said.

First of all, Putin's timeline is all wrong. Russia's war with Georgia was five years ago, not six or seven. There were no other military conflicts between the two countries during Medvedev's presidency except the five-day war in 2008.

This is not the first time that Putin has a made a surprising statement intended to show how well-informed Russia's intelligence agencies are. Instead, however, everyone was left wondering, "What are those people smoking?"

Read the rest of the article here.


Today television interview: http://rt.com/news/putin-rt-interview-full-577/

[mendeleyev]

(Russia Beyond the Headlines)

Law enforcers have arrested Mayor Yevgeny Urlashov of Yaroslavl and three of his subordinates on charges of bribery. The mayor denies any wrongdoing and claims his arrest was politically motivated. Urlashov is a member of an opposition party, the Civil Platform, which is set to challenge the ruling United Russia party in fall elections.

The Investigative Committee website reads: “During the period from December 2012 through July 2, 2013, the mayor of the city of Yaroslavl and his subordinates were extorting from the director of a commercial company a bribe in the amount of 14 million rubles [around $422,000] out of a sum remitted to the company in payment for services rendered. In the event that the company’s director failed to meet the demands, the suspects repeatedly threatened to withhold payment for services under the next contract.”

Another source close to the Presidential Executive Office adds that Urlashov’s independent political position has recently caused much trouble for United Russia. Urlashov was elected mayor a little over a year ago, after he defeated the United Russia candidate by a wide margin, winning more than 70 percent of the votes.

Urlashov was formerly a member of United Russia, but he resigned from the party in 2011. He is now a member of the federal civil committee of Mikhail Prokhorov’s Civil Platform.

Read the full story at Russia Beyond the Headlines.
Mendeleyev note: According to Russia Today TV, a court in the city of Yaroslavl has ordered that Mayor Yevgeniy Urlashov must remain in custody until September 2nd. Four of his deputies were also arrested.

[Anotherkiwi]

Mendeleyev note: According to Russia Today TV, a court in the city of Yaroslavl has ordered that Mayor Yevgeniy Urlashov must remain in custody until September 2nd. Four of his deputies were also arrested.

Does Russia not allow bail to suspects?  Or is everyone who is arrested routinely held in custody for two months before someone gets around to processing their paperwork?  The image of a Mayor of a city is surely so well-known that he is hardly likely to be a flight risk, and Yaroslavl is a very long way from the border!  It's not like he has killed anyone.

[OlgaH]

Does Russia not allow bail to suspects?  Or is everyone who is arrested routinely held in custody for two months before someone gets around to processing their paperwork?  The image of a Mayor of a city is surely so well-known that he is hardly likely to be a flight risk, and Yaroslavl is a very long way from the border!  It's not like he has killed anyone.

Anotherkiwi, the Criminal-Procedure Code of The Russian Federation has the Article 106. Bail, but as the experts say this procedure is very rare in use due to the several factors including the imperfect regulations of the legal procedure that actually doesn't allow the full realization of this article.

Plus, presumption of innocence is more a "mythical" law-term than a reality in the Russian criminal law.

[mendeleyev]

Kiwi, to add to what Olga wrote, the election is on 7 September so if he is released before a trial on 2 September it only gives him 5 days to campaign against the United Russia Party candidate. If he is convicted then he would be barred from running. No trial date has been set yet but my money is on a trail after the election.

Yaroslavl is an independent minded region and Urlashov won the mayor's slot last time around with 70% of the vote, trouncing the United Russia candidate. With he and his deputies in jail that gives the United Russia candidate a lot of time to drum up votes while the mayor sits on the sidelines.

Corruption is rampant in Russia and so we must also consider that he could possibly be guilty. The timing and circumstances just make this curious.

[Anotherkiwi]

Thank you both. 

[mendeleyev]

The corruption fighter goes to jail for corruption is common when government officials are caught red-handed in the West. In Russia however it is often just the opposite--the corrupt get richer and the innocent go to jail. Activist attorney Alexei Navalny has uncovered plenty of corruption in Russia and in so doing has embarrassed the Kremlin to no end.



So when charged with stealing lumber from a state timber company in the Kirov region, it didn't take long to figure that prosecutors has set up a staged trial. For starters, they charged him with “timber embezzlement” via “shipments free of charge” for a company in which he had been a former director. The most absurd charge was in the amount of timber supposedly stolen was more than all the timber produced in Kirov annually.



In his per-sentencing comments to the court on Friday, Navalny vowed to "destroy the feudal system" which "sits like a spider in the Kremlin." State prosecutors have requested that he be sentenced to a prison term of six years.

We're confident that in true Soviet form the prosecutors will add more charges and there will be more trials, thus extending his prison term long last the current government's life span.

Judge Sergei Blinov set the date for sentencing on 18 July. Navalny is running for Mayor of Moscow but it is likely that the judge will set aside his candidacy.

[OlgaH]

13 witnesses and experts of Navalny's defense were not allowed to testify in court... 

[OlgaH]

Following are Mr. Navalny’s remarks, translated by  Nikolai Khalip of The New York Times.       
 Dear friends,       
 Our remarkable trial resembling a TV series — and sometimes it looks like a TV series resembling a trial — is coming to an end. I am not even trying to insult the court by calling the trial a TV series, because it really resembles a TV series. And I doubt anyone here has ever been or will have a chance to be present at such an event, especially taking into account that all of us including myself know perfectly well that the main purpose of this trial was similar to a TV series: to make it so that the federal channels could mention my name in the news in the context that this is the man who stole all timber in the Kirov region, that this is that swindler. As if this can change all that I write about the swindlers who really steal billions from all of us and who seized the power in our country.       
 When I am speaking about a TV series I am trying to define the genre: is it a comedy or a drama? I could have taken it in a more ironic way if there had not been some other people involved who add a dramatic character to it. And in the first place I would like to apologize to Pyotr Ofitserov and his family because now they have to pass through this because of me. They – quite accidentally – have become hostages and now are going through all this. Just because somebody had to be linked to me. To put a person in prison for an economic crime, an entrepreneur was needed, and Pyotr Ofitserov turned out to be this entrepreneur.
 I would like to address the court and the prosecution: Stop torturing this man and his family. Everybody realizes that Ofitserov got here accidentally. The demand to put him to prison for five years is absurd.
 What five years?! What million rubles? One-fourth of his small apartment in Ochakovo has been put under lien. Isn’t it enough for you to put in prison the father of five and the only breadwinner? Do you want his five children to be in the street?       
 This is why I call on you — even in the framework of an obviously political order, a political trial — not to take steps which are apparently excessive. Ofitserov should not be put into prison within the framework of this political order. I call on everybody to keep it in mind, the goal will be achieved even without it.       
 As for myself, I know why I am here. I can look into the eyes of any person: my defense, the prosecutor, the secretary of the court, you, into this camera, into any other pair of eyes in this room or of those who are watching this on TV. Because I know that everyone who is watching it on TV or who follows this trial would come up to me and say, “Aleksei, you are not guilty in this case or in all other cases being fabricated constantly against you.”       
 Our esteemed prosecutor pronounced a phrase of genius today, which can be used as a subtitle for this trial: “Let us get out of the world of fantasy and fairy tales.”       
 I would like to address from this stand those who ordered this process: "Let us get out of the world of fantasies and fairy tales!" If anyone thinks that myself or my colleagues will cease our activity because of this trial or the Bolotnaya trials or the many other trials going on all around the country, they are gravely mistaken.       
 Some may think that this is not the best place for me to put forward conditions, to make threats or plans for the future. I don’t agree. I think this is the best place to speak about my plans, to make threats and set conditions. And I state now that myself and my colleagues will do everything possible to destroy this feudal regime being established in Russia — to destroy the system of power under which 83 percent of national wealth belongs to 0.5 percent of the population.       
 And I am happy that this trial is going on here in the Kirov region, where it is so simple to get out of the world of fantasy and fairy tales, because when you are in Kirov, Kumyony or Omutninsk, you can see that the world of fantasy and fairy tales does not exist, that the 15 years of enormous oil and gas revenues resulted for our people in what? Has anyone received access to a better medical care, education? To new apartments? What have we got?       
 I mean both those who are on this side of the courtroom and those on the opposite side: what have we gained? Nothing. We have only got one thing. You all know the one product that since Soviet time has become more affordable: vodka. This is why the only thing that is guaranteed to all of us, citizens of this country, is the degradation and the chance of drinking ourselves to death.       
 And all these people who are building this feudal regime, having seized the power, all these K.G.B. generals who planted their children in banks, all these United Russia deputies who sent theirs to Switzerland and opened bank accounts there — whole settlements in Marbella belong to Uni-Russians. We shall destroy this feudal society that is robbing all of you, sitting here.       
 Despite that fact that you have put me in the dock, myself and my colleagues will defend you from this — you people living in Kumyony, Omutninsk, Kirov, Vladivostok and all other places.       
 If somebody thinks that having heard the threat of the six-year imprisonment I would run away abroad or hide somewhere, they are mistaken. I cannot run away from myself. I have nothing else but this and I don’t want to do anything else but to help my country. To work for my compatriots.       
 I think that no one of us has the right to neutrality. No one has the right to evade the work aimed at making our world better. We do not have this right. Because every time someone thinks, "Why don’t I step aside and wait?" he only helps this disgusting feudal regime which, like a spider, is sitting in the Kremlin. He helps these 100 families, which are sucking from all of Russia. He helps them to put the Russian people on the path of degradation and drinking to death, and to take away all of the national wealth from the country.       
 In conclusion, I would like to call on all people like me, people who worked with me, people who want to work with me not to be afraid of doing it. Anyway, there are more of us. There are hundreds of thousands, millions of us. But a funny thing happens when this hundred, because of inertia and apathy, seize the power.       
 But this cannot last endlessly, that the 140 million-strong people of one of the biggest and richest countries are subjugated to a handful of bastards who are nothing. They are not even oligarchs, who built their capital due to their shrewdness or wisdom. They are a bunch of worthless former Komsomol activists turned democrats turned patriots who grabbed everything into their hands. This is nonsense, and this nonsense will be corrected by our own work.       
 Thank you very much.       

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/06/world/europe/text-of-navalnys-closing-remarks-in-russian-court.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

[Anotherkiwi]

13 witnesses and experts of Navalny's defense were not allowed to testify in court... 

...and yet he was allowed to make this speech at the end of the trial?
 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/06/world/europe/text-of-navalnys-closing-remarks-in-russian-court.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Somebody really screwed up...or else the judge is actually on the side of the angels...

[mendeleyev]

The main prosecution witness was the manager of the timber company whom Navalny had fired for embezzlement. The government made a deal for him to testify against Navalny but there were so many contradictory statements made by the witness that the defense cut him to threads--except such things don't really matter in a rigged courtroom.

Navalny's defense team called for a full audit but the prosecution said that an audit to find out if something was stolen and by whom wasn't really necessary so the judge rejected the request for an audit.

[mendeleyev]

What we have to remember here is that the national conviction rate in Russia is 99.1% for the state. Once you go to trail, you are toast no matter the facts.

[OlgaH]

...and yet he was allowed to make this speech at the end of the trial?
 
Somebody really screwed up...or else the judge is actually on the side of the angels...

If the judge would not allow the last speech it would be too obvious that the trial was itself a show trial. What so interesting but not so surprising the TV journalists "left before Navalny's speech: and the speech was not broadcasted  only the prosecutor's speech 

There are 31 volumes in Navalny case and no one document or evidence on transferring money to Navalny or/and laundering to prove his very private interests in "Vyatsky Forest Company." If you can translate here is much more interesting facts http://www.novayagazeta.ru/news/67535.html

[OlgaH]

What we have to remember here is that the national conviction rate in Russia is 99.1% for the state. Once you go to trail, you are toast no matter the facts.

and such cases like Navalny's case the state makes like blini  (are they edible or not? depends on personal preferences)

[Muzh]

.... and I bet you no one will lift a finger to stop this madness. Mumble? Yes. Do? Nyet.

[OlgaH]

.... and I bet you no one will lift a finger to stop this madness. Mumble? Yes. Do? Nyet.

Protests, websites, printed materials ...

In Navalny's support