More evidence of Russia’s deepening authoritarianism
Via the NYT: Kasparov Gets 5 Days in Jail for Marching
Garry Kasparov, the former chess champion and opposition leader, was arrested Saturday and sentenced to five days in jail after trying to lead a march to the offices of the federal election authorities.
Mr. Kasparov was taken into custody during a scuffle between protesters and security officers on the route to the offices, where he had intended to present a letter asserting that the parliamentary election on Dec. 2 was biased toward President Vladimir V. Putin’s party.
[...]
On Saturday night, a Moscow judge ordered him to serve five days in jail for holding an unauthorized march. City officials had given his loose opposition coalition, Other Russia, permission to conduct a rally on Saturday, but not a march.
Beyond arresting people for marches to deliver a letter, the AFP reports that Russian police raised Kasparov’s offices and gathered information on the opposition:
The coalition’s spokeswoman Lyudmila Mamina told AFP that the police did not proffer any explanations for the raid in the office housing the party’s website.
“They had no documents, acted on the authority of some secret decree, so they could not say what it was about,” she said.
“They wrote down passport data of all our staff, drew a map of the office, and wrote down that they found nothing criminal, no drugs, no weapons.”
“It was all connected to (Saturday’s) March of Dissenters. It was an attempt to scare off its organisers,” said, adding: “Our staff reacted calmly. This is not the first such raid, a year ago they broke in with weapons …”
November 25th, 2024 at 10:17 pm
Kasparov’s Other Russia runs a blog and website (linked below). Fairly good detail from the inside.
Russia’s a textbook case of what some call “authoritarian upgrading.” Given how Putin’s rigged the electoral system against small parties, one wouldn’t even expect this level of repression to be necessary. Other Russia must be defying expectations about opposition fragmentation.
November 25th, 2024 at 10:23 pm
[...] Finally, few would, I expect, argue that democratic republicanism is a bad solution for perennial laggard nations Russia or Venezuela (both of which still contain nomadic tribes in thier vast undeveloped interiors). Quod erat demonstrandum. [...]
November 26th, 2024 at 8:27 am
Seems like old times.
November 26th, 2024 at 10:12 am
Marching Orders
Gary Kasparov gets arrested and sentenced to jail for marching. Same ole Russia.