Foreign Agents

Lyudmila Savitskaya • Facebook • December 28, 2021

A year ago, the Russian authorities labeled me a foreign agent. THIS MESSAGE (MATERIAL) WAS CREATED AND (OR) DISTRIBUTED BY A FOREIGN MASS MEDIA OUTLET PERFORMING THE FUNCTIONS OF A FOREIGN AGENT AND (OR) A RUSSIAN LEGAL ENTITY PERFORMING THE FUNCTIONS OF A FOREIGN AGENT. During these 365 days, one of my bank cards was blocked on suspicion of money laundering, I was fined over ten thousand rubles for the Journalist-Foreign Agent LLC that I created by order of the Justice Ministry, and I was deprived of the opportunity to work on certain projects. Antidepressants appeared in my medicine cabinet, and a psychiatrist became one of my friends.

My husband Dmitry Permyakov was turned into a family member of an enemy of the people: as a person affiliated with a “foreign agent” he was summoned for questioning by Center “E” and threatened with torture in prison. And another person close to the police called to solicitously warn us that our home had been bugged. You can read this year’s other sad particulars in my column for Sever.Realii – “Luda, the floor is burning under your feet!” (See the link in the first comment.)

But here you can admire my super agent photo shoot, which was cold but quite a lot of fun. No time to die, happy new year!

Russia Labels Pussy Riot Activists, Satirist ‘Foreign Agents’ • Moscow Times • December 30, 2021

Russia has added members of the Pussy Riot art activist collective, a prominent satirist and an independent journalist its registry of “foreign agents” Thursday.

The designations close a year in which Russia labeled nearly every major independent domestic news outlet, as well as dozens of individual journalists and activists, a “foreign agent.”

Founding Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and fellow member Nika Nikulshina have been added to the Justice Ministry’s “foreign agents” registry.

Tolokonnikova, 32, was among the Pussy Riot members who were sentenced to prison for their 2012 protest performance in central Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral that criticized the Russian Orthodox Church’s close ties with President Vladimir Putin.

Anti-Kremlin satirist Viktor Shenderovich; Taisiya Bekbulatova, chief editor of the independent Holod news website; and art collector and former Kremlin advisor Marat Gelman have also been added to the list.

“These people systematically distribute materials to an indefinite circle of persons, while receiving foreign funds,” the Justice Ministry’s statement said.

The ministry’s registry now includes more than 100 entities and individuals, most of which were added in 2021.

Rights advocates denounce the country’s “foreign agents” law, saying it seeks to silence groups and individuals that dissent from state narratives by branding them with a label that carries dark connotations from the Soviet era.

Labeled individuals and entities must submit regular financial reports and detailed lists of income and spending, as well as prominently display a wordy disclaimer on all articles, social media posts and other publications — or else face criminal charges.

But officials defend the law, pointing to what they say are harsher equivalent laws in Western countries.

On Monday, prominent BBC Russian investigative journalist Andrei Zakharov said he left the country two months after being labeled a “foreign agent,” saying he faced “unprecedented surveillance” following his designation.

And Russian courts this week ruled to liquidate the two main structures of Memorial, Russia’s leading human rights group and a key pillar of its civil society, citing repeated violations of the “foreign agent” law.

Alexander Morozov • Facebook • December 30, 2021

After seeing today’s list of “foreign agents,” I thought: is any more proof required that this status is exclusively political, that its legal aspect does not matter at all? These are not foreign agents in the sense of “lobbyists of a foreign state.” They are “agents of the West” (in the broad sense of “the hostile West”). In this respect, their status directly depends on the Kremlin’s conflict with the outside world. The next stage of escalation (which, in my opinion, is inevitable) will automatically mean that, regardless of their legal status as “foreign agents,” the people on the list will be criminally prosecuted. After all, the list is “good to go”: it exists and therefore should be put to work. So the list is no joke at all. Anyone who does not leave the country before the Kremlin’s conflict with the West accidentally escalates will end up behind bars. Therefore, I won’t congratulate people dear to me on having this label conferred on them. It’s a very dangerous and grim business.

Pussy Riot • Facebook • December 30, 2021

THIS MESSAGE (MATERIAL) CREATED AND DISTRIBUTED BY A FOREIGN MASS MEDIA PERFORMING THE FUNCTIONS OF A FOREIGN AGENT

two of Pussy Riot, Nadya Tolokonnikova and Nika Nikulshina, were added to the government list of “foreign agents” & required to start every tweet w this disclaimer.

OFFICIAL REACTION:

1. lol

2. we will not label my posts, the government can label their asses if they’d like.

3. we will appeal in court.

4. Russia will be free.

Matvey Ganapolsky • Facebook • December 30, 2021

I want to say what will happen with the Russian media in 2022.

1. Domestic opposition media outlets will be destroyed and gutted. TV Rain and Echo of Moscow will have huge problems, including closure or reformatting, because they broadcast oppositional viewpoints. Neither [Alexei] Venediktov nor [Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitry] Muratov will be able to save them.

2. Under various, poorly concealed pretexts, the local offices of Radio Svoboda [Radio Liberty] and the BBC will be closed. Radio Svoboda’s internet broadcasts and podcasts will be blocked, as well as the websites of these companies. VPNs will also be blocked.

3. The West will find itself in a paradoxical situation in which it will be necessary to resume short-wave broadcasting. Russia will respond by jamming them. Young people will run to their grandparents to retrieve old radios.

4. The media situation will be at the level of the late USSR. It will change only with Putin’s departure or death.

Items 1, 3, and 5 translated by the Russian Reader

Petersburg Police Sabotage Pussy Riot Video Shoot

Police Sabotage Pussy Riot Video Shoot at Lenfilm Studio
Mediazona
February 9, 2020

Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova has told Mediazona that police have sabotaged the filming of a video for the Pussy Riot song “Rage” at Lenfilm Studio in Petersburg.

“There are cops and Center ‘E’ officers at the filming of our video at Lenfilm. First, they came and made us sign an obligation not to promote ‘homosexualism’ and ‘extremism,” and then left to talk with Lenfilm management. Half an hour later, the lights were turned off throughout the building. The shoot was scheduled to run from noon to six in the morning. So, the whole thing’s a bust,” Tolokonnikova said.

Police at Lenfilm in Petersburg. Photo by Nadezhda Tolokonnikova. Courtesy of Mediazona

The producers tried to rent a generator, but they were not permitted to bring it on the premises of the studio.

“Two days before the shoot, plainclothes officers visited Lenfilm and insisted they cancel the shoot. Surprisingly, Lenfilm refused to heed their request, telling them that we had paid and all the paperwork was in order,” the performance artist added.

Tolokonnikova said that feminist activist Nixel Pixel (aka Nika Vodwood), artist Lölja Nordic, and photographer Aleksandr Sofeev were among the people slated to appear in the video.

“There were supposed to be riot cops [OMON] in the video, but a real patrol showed up instead. The song is about resisting the authorities,” Tolokonnikova told Mediazona.

In an interview with Znak.com, Inessa Yurchenko, who was appointed Lenfilm’s new director general two days ago, called Tolokonnikov’s story a provocation.

“The guys were supposed to have actors in police uniforms, so they cannot pass that off as there being police officers there. There are no police officers on the premises of Lenfilm. It’s not nice to show pictures of actors and provoke the public,” she said.

Yurchenko threatened to call the police.

“I won’t be surprised if there are more provocations on their part—then I will be forced to call the police,” she said.

Yurchenko explained that the blackout in the studio had been caused by an accident on the power grid.

“The head of security will now have to follow regulations while the cause of the accident is established, and so he will have to ask [people] to evacuate Lenfilm because it’s a [secure] facility,” she said.

She added that the activists could return to the film studio when the power was restored.

Translated by the Russian Reader

Johnny Depp and Oleg Sentsov

65ca717b4fdfa50aa57bdb0888dd72e8 — “Oleg Sentsov is a Ukrainian filmmaker. When Crimea was annexed by Russia, he became a prime target to make an example of it in order to stifle dissent. He’s been tortured and sentenced to 20 years in prison, but Oleg is not backing down.” Image and text courtesy of Represent and The Voice Project.

Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, and New Year’s are just around the corner. This year, think about giving your friends and loved ones t-shirts, produced by The Voice Project, featuring the mug shots of Johnny Depp, Nadya Tolokonnikova, Peter Gabriel, Tom Morello, Ana Tijoux, and Alex Ebert.

This is their way of bringing attention to the plights of political prisoners around the world, including Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, now serving a twenty-year sentence in Siberia on trumped-up charges of “terrorism.”

I’ll definitely be buying the Johnny Depp t-shirt. Not only has Mr. Depp been one of my favorite actors ever since the days of 21 Jump Street, he has chosen to draw attention to Mr. Sentsov’s imprisonment.

artists-800x520 — Image courtesy of The Voice Project and The Kyiv Post

The Voice Project speaks up for those who speak out, for those imprisoned around the globe for having raised their voice in dissent. We have to support each other, no matter the distance, no matter the borders. You never know when you’ll need the same in return.

For singers Trần Vũ Anh Bình and Nûdem Durek, filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, writer Dawit Isaak and poet Ashraf Fayadh, these individuals have fought for change, used their voices to speak out, and are paying with their freedom and their lives. We owe it to them to speak up now on their behalf.

Source: Represent

The Russian National Idea

Putin Proclaims National Idea
Fontanka.ru
February 3, 2016

In Russia, there can be no other unifying idea than patriotism, argues President Vladimir Putin, as reported by TASS.

“This is, in fact, the national idea,” the head of state announced during a meeting with the Leaders Club, which brings together entrepreneurs from forty of the country’s regions.

According to Putin, this idea is not ideologized and is not linked to the work of a particular party, reports RIA Novosti.

“It is a common rallying point. If we want to live better, the country has to be more attractive to all citizens and more effective,” the president stressed.

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Who Killed a Transsexual in Ufa and Why?
Ufa1.ru
February 2, 2016

On Monday, February 1, Angela Likina was stabbed in the chest and killed in Ufa. The Ufa resident had gained notoriety in 2014, when a video recorded on a traffic police dashcam entitled “Ufa Traffic Cops Stop a Transvestite” [sic] went viral on the Web. Ufa1.ru found out who killed Oleg Vorobyov, who had changed his sex and become Angela Likina, and why.

2-z23-8ba7384a-0952-45c2-a705-e03be67de8d4 — Angela Likina. Photo courtesy of Ufa1.ru

The controversial video from the traffic police car dashcam recorded an inspector checking the papers of a female motorist. It transpired, however, that the motorist’s name, according to his internal passport, was Oleg Vorobyov. The inspector was very surprised by this. The motorist was a transsexual who had been preparing for a sex change operation for several years, becoming Angela Likina. The restricted video was leaked to the Web.

Later, the State Auto Inspectorate conducted a review of the incident, because the restricted footage should have not ended up on the Web. Angela Likina also commented on the video herself. She was surprised the incident had provoked so much interest among Web users.

“People die in accidents, children get hurt, cars are stolen, blood is needed to save someone’s life. Gentlemen, why are you setting records for likes and reposts about me? I honestly don’t understand,” said Likina, adding, “I don’t care how you live, what you do, and so on, so long as you are alive, healthy, and happy. But my life does not concern you in absolutely any way.”

How Did Oleg Live?
Ufa1.ru spoke with friends and acquaintances of Angela Likina, who talked about the life of the murdered woman. We found out this sad ending had emerged from a number of factors. Before becoming Angela Likina, Oleg Vorobyov had been married. Acquaintances confess that, outwardly, the couple were seemingly happy. They were raising two daughters, now aged fourteen and nine. The family lived in a private house, which also housed Oleg’s auto repair garage. Many of the people with whom we spoke said automobile owners were satisfied with Oleg’s work, that he had a magic touch.

Over five years ago, Oleg realized he was living in someone else’s body. He understood he wanted to change his sex and become the person he thought he was. Oleg began calling himself Angela Likina and started the complicated process of preparing to change his sex. He took hormone pills and began dressing like a woman. According to his internal passport, however, he remained Oleg Vorobyov. He could only change his name after finally changing his sex.

Five years ago, the Vorobyovs divorced, but the former husband and wife and their two children kept living under the same roof. The house was the wife’s property, and her former husband had an established business there. Several of the family’s acquaintances believe that Angela did not want to lose her income from the auto repair garage and spend money on renting a place to live. After all, she had to save up a large sum of money for the operation, and the medicines she took to prepare for the procedure were expensive. Close friends emphasize that Angela worked a lot, sometimes seven days a week.

At the same time, Ufa1.ru’s sources noted the Ufa resident simply had no choice.

“He once tried to rent a flat, but was kicked out. A neighbor had said, ‘I don’t want my children to see this!’ Consequently, he was evicted and didn’t even get his money back,” said one of our sources.

Friends of the family noted that those who have lived under the same roof with ex-spouses can imagine the atmosphere that prevailed in the Vorobyov house. Some say that the rows over living arrangements caused the Vorobyovs to come to blows. Things were aggravated by the fact that the head of the family had become a woman. Their children also became the targets of reproaches and ridicule at school.

“They would come home in tears, and sometimes refuse to go to school, but Angela loved her daughters and gave them a lot of time,” acquaintances noted.

Who Killed Angela?
According to friends, a boyfriend came to visit Oleg’s ex-wife on the ill-fated evening. The criminal investigation will shed more light on what exactly happened in the house. For now, the family’s acquaintances have their own hypotheses. Perhaps the man intervened in yet another family row. Maybe he stood up for his girlfriend and wanted to intimidate Angela by demanding she pack her things and leave. The row, however, escalated into something bigger.

“She was stabbed in the chest near the heart. She did not die immediately. She made it to a neighbor’s house, told him what had happened and who had done it, and an ambulance was summoned. Then Angela died in the neighbor’s arms. It was apparently too late to help her. I don’t know what was happening in the family. Angela was a good person, but strangers often beat her up. Her neighbors respected her choice. It is a bad thing when a person steals, kills or rapes, but everything else is a private matter,” said an acquaintance of Angela’s.

“The best human qualities—kindness, fairness, compassion, and unselfishness—were powerfully manifested in her. Unfortunately, that is a rarity nowadays. And she really never held a grudge against anyone, although there were a fairly large number of people who wished her ill. Most of them, it is true, were people who did not know her at all. They insulted and mocked her. You could say she was understanding about it: far from everyone in our city, or even our country, is ready to comprehend the decision to have a sex change. And that is another reason I have endless respect for her: the determination to go her own way to the end, to change her life fundamentally, the willingness to take one and overcome all the difficulties,” another girlfriend of Angela’s confided to Ufa1.ru.

“Apparently, Angela sensed her impending death. Not long before this she had asked forgiveness from her wife for all the rows that had happened between them,” said another family acquaintance.

__________

Fire at Moscow workshop kills 12 people, including 3 children
Boston Globe
January 31, 2016

ASSOCIATED PRESS, JANUARY 31, 2016, MOSCOW — A fire at a textile workshop in Moscow has killed 12 people, including three children, officials said.

The victims were not identified but were reportedly immigrants.

The Investigative Committee, the top state investigative agency, said the fire broke out late Saturday in northeastern Moscow, damaging more than 32,000 square feet of the structure.

Investigators said they are looking at negligence or arson as possible causes.

Russia’s children’s rights ombudsman, Pavel Astakhov, said Sunday on his Twitter account that three children were among those who died, including a baby. He said the victims were migrant workers who lived next to their workplace.

Several dozen fire engines responded to the blaze, and it took firefighters about five hours to extinguish the blaze.

Investigators continued to sift through the rubble Sunday for evidence.

Many immigrants work in Russian factories, some of which have been investigated for hazardous working conditions. In April, a blaze on the outskirts of Moscow killed 17 migrant workers.

__________

The death toll of Kyrgyz citizens (according to the Embassy of the Kyrgyz Republic in the Russian Federation):

1. Sajida Masaliyeva, born 1988. Home address: Village of Kyzyl-Bel, Batken District, Batken Region.

2. Toktokan Saliyeva, born 1983. Home address: Village of Tayan, Batken District, Batken Region.

3. Uulkan Saliyeva, born 1997, sister of Toktokan Saliyeva.

4. Isa kizi Aizat, born 1995. According to available information, Isa was a native of the Village of Kaiyndy, Batken Region.

5. Milikajdar uulu Koshonbay, born 1990.

6. Tologon Kozuyev, born 1991.

7. Manas, born 1995; brother of Tologon Kozuyev; no other details.

8. Daniel, 4-5 years old, son of Ergeshbay Japarov, a Russian national who perished in the fire; born in the village of Rout, Batken District, Batken Region; according to the victims, Daniel was a citizen of the Kyrgyz Republic.

Source: Radio Azzatyk

__________

The four-minute-and-twenty-five-second rap version of Alexei Navalny’s exposé of Russian prosecutor general Yuri Chaika, as performed by Nadya Tolokonnikova. Thanks to Comrade SC for the heads-up.

_________

[Elena Bobrova:] You are something of a patriot yourself?

[Nikolai Kolyada:] How else should I relate to Russia? I love her whatever she be like. Like Gogol I can tell the whole unvarnished truth about her. And Nikolai Vasilyevich said such awful things about Russia. He sobbed bloody tears when thinking about the country. But not because he hated it. On the contrary, because he loved it. When foreigners start speaking badly about Russia, I begin to boil: “Shut up, it is none of your business. I have the right to say anything about her, but you do not.” Well, it is okay when Europeans or Americans sling mud at us: they have a hard time coping with the fact we are different, unpredictable, and freer than they are. But when our own people hate their own country, that is terrible. This morning, I was reading Facebook and I thought, “Why do you live here if you hate Russia so much?”

[Bobrova:] But you just said yourself we have a right to chew out Russia because we live here.

[Kolyada:] Chew out but not hate. But Facebook is just seething with hatred.

—Excerpted from “20% of the Petersburg audience are loonies,” Gorod 812 (print edition), February 1, 2016, page 34

Items one, two, four, and six translated by the Russian Reader

Nadya Tolokonnikova: The Year in Review

6_bottle

Nadya Tolokonnikova
The Year in Review, or, An Eternal Russian Winter in Solitary Confinement
December 29, 2015
Facebook

We rang in 2015 seeing Oleg Navalny sent off to a penal colony for three and a half years for the fact his brother was involved in politics.

Pyotr Pavlensky rang in 2015 by starting a bonfire on a Moscow quay.

“You spend the year the way you ring it in,” said Pavlensky as he left the Guelman Gallery, where we were seeing in 2015, and went off to an icy quay on the River Yauza to start a fire.

In November 2015, Petya pulled off the biggest art action of the year by torching the doors of the FSB. Pavlensky will greet the New Year in a cell at Butyrka remand prison.

In 2015 we found out you cannot only be imprisoned for political activism but also gunned down for it in the center of Moscow.

As 2015 ended, arrests in the Bolotnaya Square case continued. Anarchist Dmitry Buchenkov was arrested on December 3. The defense claims he was not at Bolotnaya Square on May 6, 2012.

Gallerist Guelman held a charity auction at his gallery in support of the Bolotnaya Square prisoners. The result was that the Guelman Gallery was no longer Guelman’s gallery. He was not forgiven by the powers that be for the auction, and the gallery was wrested away from him.

But the government also made humane decisions in 2015. After sentencing Vasilyeva to five years in prison, the court let her out on parole two months later.

In 2015, the government also destroyed embargoed produce, because they had no fucking clue what to do about falling oil prices. Russians were weaned off the notion of stability and tightened their belts as the Russian economic crisis made $400 a month a serious, substantial salary, as in the early noughties. In a number of Russian cities, the critical debts owed by municipal governments to fuel suppliers have led to stoppages of public transport, and electric companies have turned off the lights in the stairwells of apartment blocks.

The myth of stability has been destroyed, the state is the new punk, a rifle is a party, and everything is going to fucking hell in a hand basket. The New Year’s meal, by the way, will cost on average 5,790 rubles this year, which is 28% more than a year ago. So it is better to save money on December 31 and take a nap.

And, while you are sleeping, to dream of Pyotr Pavlensky, Oleg Navalny, and Bolotnaya Square political prisoner Alexei Gaskarov celebrating the New Year in their prison cells and pouring Duchesse, a domestic carbonated beverage, into recycled plastic instant mashed potato cups.

Amen.

Translated by the Russian Reader. Image of Duchesse soda bottles courtesy of Frutto

Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina on the Sentsov-Kolchenko Verdict

Masha Alyokhina
August 25, 2015
Facebook

“I don’t know what is worth doing if you cannot die for it,” said Sentsov.

“We are discussing narrow questions,” said the judge, interrupting him.

Our “twofer” was piddly shit compared with this. Just imagine being locked up in a prison colony not for two autumns, but twenty, and for just as many winters. Sentsov is a single father who has been sentenced to twenty years in a maximum security prison by Russia.

His sister says, “We fear Oleg will be forgotten.”

If convicts in Russia can be forgotten by those on the outside, inside they can be killed. I hate this system under which it is so easy to kill.

The anarchist Kolchenko was sentenced by Russia to ten years hard time.

We must not forget them. They laugh at the verdict of a country that took them hostage.

Ten and twenty years in prison.

Hang in there, please, we are with you.

Alexander Kolchenko and Oleg Sentsov

__________

Nadya Tolokonnikova
August 25, 2015
Facebook

“Well, what did you need to go and do that for? You’re a young, pretty girl, and what have you got yourself into? When you get out, who’s going to remember you? Who’s going to want you, silly goose? Why are you so stuck on politics?”

Coppers and screws always talk this way, because they don’t understand how someone could not break down and admit their guilt. After all, if you confess, they promise to reduce your sentence.

Oleg, you will get out earlier, of course. And whatever they say to you in there, we will not forget you.

Translated by the Russian Reader. Photo courtesy of Masha Alyokhina

Nadya Tolokonnikova: There Is No “People”

Nadya Tolokonnikova
June 18, 2015

It is not for nothing they are so fond of the amorphous and faceless word narod, “the people.” There is no “people.” There is you and me, and that guy with the mustache, passing by on the street. “The people” smacks of prison camp standardization. They say “the people” so the individual feels like a tiny grain of sand, faceless and alone.

“We should not have got involved in this Ukrainian business . . . But generally I don’t like talking about politics,” my acquaintance from a small Russian town quietly whispers to me. Political miracles begin to occur when the belief she has a voice is born in my acquaintance, the belief in her own stance, which might differ from the majority’s position and still have the right to exist.

So that this belief does not emerge, she is told she is “the people.” But do something to make her realize she is not alone. Show her people who think like she does. Let her believe there is something besides atoms, separated and frightened by TV and mutual distrust, hidden in the cells of their nuclear families, and venting their anger and resentment within those families.

Source: Facebook

Images courtesy, via a Google image search, of the website Pereprava, where, unsurprisingly, the exact opposite sentiments are expressed.

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova: My Country’s Pain

First, the Russian authorities have gotten so adept at reacting to protests that now they react even to a neighboring country as if it were a demonstration that can and should be dispersed.

Second, in this picture is all the pain of my country in the twentieth century and now in the twenty-first as well. This pain is called the “right of the strong.”

source

A Muted Joy: Who Got Left Out of Putin’s Amnesty

Lenta.Ru
December 19, 2013
A Muted Joy
Four Defendants in the Bolotnaya Square Case Amnestied

The amnesty passed yesterday by the State Duma has enabled charges against four defendants in the Bolotnaya Square case to be dropped. Today, December 19, opposition activist Vladimir Akimenkov and journalist Leonid Kovyazin, who had been held in a remand prison for over a year, were released. Human rights activist Nikolai Kavkazsky was released from house arrest, and charges were likewise dropped against Maria Baronova, who had been under travel restrictions. Our correspondent went to the hearing at the Nikulinsky District Court in Moscow to see how the “prisoners of Bolotnaya” were freed.

Lawyers and journalists waited for the hearing to begin in a small, five-table cafe on the first floor of the Nikulinsky District Court. It had been known since yesterday evening that motions to amnesty four defendants in the Bolotnaya Square case—Maria Baronova, Vladimir Akimenkov, Nikolai Kavkazsky and Leonid Kovyazin—would be filed today. The four had been charged under sections 2 and 3 of Article 212 of the Criminal Code (participating in rioting and incitement to riot). Yesterday, the State Duma amended the president’s amnesty bill, extending it not only those convicted of such crimes but also to suspects and defendants charged under this article. However, the hearing had already been delayed by two hours and the people in the cafe were nervous.

Someone suggested the motions would not be accepted until Vladimir Putin’s press conference was over, because Judge Natalya Nikishina was waiting for a go-ahead from the Kremlin. Someone else claimed that traffic jams were to blame: because of them, the defendants had not been delivered to the court on time.

“In our difficult times, any delay gives rise to conspiracy theories,” lawyer Sergei Badamshin said by way of summing up.

When asked whether the four defendants would be released, lawyer Vadim Klyuvgant answered quite cautiously.

“It often happens that courts like to drag things out until the verdict. In Russia, the authorities don’t like letting people go. Today, I heard that some lady from the Federal Penitentiary Service said that for Nadya [Tolokonnikova] to be amnestied they would need a paper from child protection services saying that Nadya had not been deprived of her parental rights. Can you imagine? What grounds do they have for suspecting her of this? Her daughter has a birth certificate in which Nadya is identified as the mother. But in Russia, if they don’t want to let someone go, they always come up with an excuse.”

Dmitry Agranovsky, Vladimir Akimenkov’s lawyer, was categorical.

“I prepared the draft amendments to the amnesty bill along with MPs from the Communist Party. We ensured that the cases against people eligible for amnesty who have been charged under Article 212 would be dropped not after the verdict, but at the stage where they are currently are. From a legal perspective, Akimenkov should be released today, end of story. Since yesterday, there has no longer been any need for his detention. His complaint has already been filed with the European Court of Human Rights, and if he’s kept in the remand prison even for a day after the amnesty bill is published, that will be tantamount to a real abuse of power, since they are no legal grounds for detaining him. He should be released in the courtroom.”

Agranovsky recited [the final stanza of Pushkin’s poem “Deep in Siberian mines”] with expression.

“The heavy fetters will fall, / The jails will crumble. And freedom / Will joyfully hail you at the entrance, / And brothers will give you back your swords.”

Lawyer Alexei Vetrentsev, who was representing defendant Leonid Kovyazin, did not think his client would be released today.

“I think Leonid will be released from the remand prison only tomorrow. There’ll be paperwork at the prison, and he’ll have to gather his things.”

The expression on Vetrentsev’s face was extremely sad.

“For us, the amnesty is a good decision, but I feel embarrassed before the others. It is inhuman to carry out an amnesty this way, releasing some people while others are left in jail.”

Nine other people were to appear with his client in the cage for defendants at the Nikulinsky District Court. Only two of them, Kovyazin and Akimenkov, were supposed to be released. Baronova, the mother of a young child, had been under travel restrictions, while Kavkazsky had been under house arrest.

“I’m ashamed, but I’m glad, and that’s an objective feeling,” said Baronova. “You can feel as guilty as you like because the others aren’t being let out, but now for the first time in two years I can leave the country for at least a few days. I’m looking here at names of banks that give consumer loans for the New Year holidays, so I can go to Berlin.”

(Left to right) Sergei Krivov, Stepan Zimin, Denis Lutskevich, Andrei Barabanov and Artyom Savyolov. Photo: Gennady Gulyaev/Kommersant

Anatoly, grandfather of anarchist Alexei Polikhovich, another defendant, sat motionless not far from Baronova. Anatoly’s grandson was first charged under “amnestied” Article 212, for involvement in rioting. But after a press conference last year in which President Vladimir Putin spoke out strongly against people who had [allegedly] assaulted police officers, Article 318 (“use of violence that does not endanger human life or health […] against a representative of the authority”), the standard charge, was added to the charges against Polikhovich. Riot police officer Igor Tarasov had then suddenly remembered that at the May 6, 2012, rally, Polikhovich had “hit him in the wrist, causing severe pain.”

Immediately after the defendants were brought into the courtroom, the four lawyers moved to have their clients released in connection with the amnesty decree published yesterday in [official government newspaper] Rossiiskaya Gazeta. The appeals were wholly supported by the prosecution. Judge Natalya Nikishina then asked whether the appeals were supported by the remaining defendants not covered by the amnesty—that is, Polikhovich, Alexandra Dukhanina, Denis Lutskevich, Stepan Zimin, Sergei Krivov, Andrei Barabanov, Yaroslav Belousov and Artyom Savyolov.

Polikhovich replied by chuckling ironically a few times, but the other defendants unanimously seconded the appeals. Stella Anton, Denis Lutskevich’s mother, wept loudly. Twenty minutes later, Judge Nikishina returned to the courtroom and read out her decision: to grant the motions and dismiss the criminal charges.

The first to exit the courtroom was Leonid Kovyazin. His wife Yevgenia threw her arms around him.

“The guys aren’t getting out, and that’s bad,” said Kovyazin, now free. “My joy is severely muted for this reason.”

When asked what conditions had been like for him in the Butyrka remand prison, Kovyazin answered calmly.

“At first, I had conflicts in the remand prison. Then I got used to it: the only tough thing was the waiting. Other than that, the people in prison, who are mostly there on drugs charges, are often quite outstanding. Incidentally, I was surprised it wasn’t only young people who used drugs: there were fortysomething men in jail with me who told me how they had got hooked on heroin on their birthdays. Basically, I can’t say anything good about jail: any term of imprisonment means stress, unhappiness and a few years deducted from your life. For example, it is physically painful to ride in the paddy wagon: it is very cold in winter, and extremely hot in summer.”

Kovyazin had been accused of overturning portable toilets that had been set up in Bolotnaya Square during last year’s May 6 rally, which ended in massive clashes between protesters and police. Kovyazin was frank about his actions that day.

“I had gone to the square to shoot video for the Vyatsk Observer newspaper, but then I lost my cool. When I saw the case materials, the video shot from above, I noticed that at the moment [when police dispersed the rally] only around fifty people remained in the square, but the police were on both sides. I had shot scenes of people being beaten by the police, but then I had put away the camera and yet was unable to leave. Perhaps that was my mistake: the camera distances you from what’s happening, but when you’re involved in the events, it’s different.”

Kovyazin did not deny that he had pushed the toilet stalls.

“It was an emotional decision. After the fact you can discuss it at length and reflect on it, but when you see [people being beaten] . . . I was caught up in the action. Later, when the task force came to arrest me, I said to my brother, ‘See you in five years.’ Fortunately, that hasn’t come to pass.”

After a pause, Leonid continued.

“If I could play it back, I would do what I did, only I would have gone without the camera. As Vova [Vladimir Akimenkov] joked to me, ‘When you get out, the journalists are going to slap you first, then shake your hand.’ Because that kind of involvement is, of course, a violation of professional journalistic ethics. But I don’t believe I was involved in rioting.”

“There was no rioting in the square,” asserted Nikolai Kavkazsky, one of the amnestied defendants and a lawyer with the human rights organization Civil Assistance. “It is obvious to everyone that on May 6 there was a sanctioned march and rally that the authorities wanted to disrupt. People who went to that rally are now on trial, but not the policemen who actually violated the law, which prohibits dispersing rallies. What happened to me, for example? I saw a police officer hitting some unknown people with a truncheon. He was beating them severely, you might say. I went up to the police officer and wanted to say to him, ‘Why are you violating the law on police conduct? Why are you beating citizens?” But I didn’t manage to say anything. He raised his truncheon. I wanted to cover myself with hands, but the blow landed on my arm, and to protect myself from this police officer, I lifted my leg. That was it.”

Kavkazsky was arrested on July 25, 2012, when he left his home to buy new pants. (He never did buy those pants.) Later, in the remand prison, he found that the hardest thing to endure was being cut off from the familiar, everyday world.

“When you’re cut off from the phone and Internet, from interacting with your usual circle of people, you feel completely isolated. That’s the scariest thing. And there’s not knowing. Conditions in prisons are horrible: they’re not meant to observe human rights but to violate them. Everything is forbidden there. Why do they forbid you from listening to music you want to listen to? Why can’t you put duvets on your blankets? Why can’t you eat the food you like?”

Kavkazsky spent nearly a year in the remand prison. He was switched to house arrest only in August of this year because endocrine disorders he suffers from had flared up while he was in custody.

Vladimir Akimenkov, an activist with the now-routed Left Front, was also released from the remand prison on Thursday. At first, he had wanted to turn down the amnesty.

“It’s a Byzantine decision: they’re planning to release some and not others. I don’t understand how I’m better than the others, why guys who have become real comrades to me, people with serious health problems, including fathers and men separated from their other halves, have to be in prison.”

His lawyer convinced Akimenkov to sign the appeal. He did not consider himself guilty.

“I did none of the things I’ve been charged with. I was not involved in a riot that, incidentally, did not happen.”

Akimenkov looked out the window and rubbed his wrists.

“I find it strange to go outside, strange to feel my hands without handcuffs on them. But after I find a job, I’ll be going to the Bolotnaya Square trial, making care packages, giving money and doing everything possible to ensure there is not a single political prisoner in this country.”

In the very near future, Akimenkov plans to attend another trial, that of Left Front coordinator Sergei Udaltsov, accused of organizing the “riot” in downtown Moscow a year and a half ago. The court has yet to begin examining the charges against him.

Svetlana Reiter

NB. The original article features a four-minute video of the December 19 court hearing and its aftermath.

“Nothing personal, just business”: Human Rights Council Confirms Tolokonnikova’s Claims

“Nothing personal, just business”
Presidential Human Rights Council Confirms Tolokonnikova’s Claims of Violations at Penal Colony
September 27, 2013
Maxim Solopov
Gazeta.Ru

Members of the Presidential Human Rights Council who visited Women’s Penal Colony No. 14 in Mordovia have confirmed the claims made by Nadezhda Tolokonnikova in her complaint. According to the human rights advocates, many of the inmates are intimidated and afraid. The penal colony administration said the increase in the length of the workday had resulted from obligations to their business partners: they had a large order for police uniforms. Meanwhile, Gazeta.Ru has obtained access to video evidence and testimony from relatives regarding a hunger strike at a neighboring men’s penal colony where inmates are afraid for their lives.

After visiting Penal Colony No. 14 in Mordovia, Ilya Shablinsky, a member of the Presidential Human Rights Council (HRC) and professor of constitutional and municipal law in the Law Faculty at the Higher School of Economics, has confirmed Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova’s claims regarding human rights violations at the prison. According to the fifty-one-year-old professor, whose mother was born in practically the same camp in 1939, he tried to interview as many inmates as he could before talking to Tolokonnikova herself. He managed to have in-depth conversations with eight other prisoners. Shablinsky said their stories made “[his] hair stand on end.”

“The prison administration, it has to be said, let me speak with inmates face-to-face in the office of the penal colony’s deputy chief warden. But that’s not all: most of the women froze up in response to my questions and refused to speak.”

“One of the women, whose nose was bashed to one side like a boxer’s, simply burst into tears after one of my questions about the length of the workday,” Shablinsky said.

“After that, I met with a few courageous women, whose names should be known: Natalia Karatina, Ulyana Balashova, and Ksenia Ivashchenko. Their lives and well-being are currently in danger,” Shablinsky said. “They decided to submit detailed evidence in written form, confirming all of the facts described in Tolokonnikova’s letter.”

According to the evidence collected by HRC members at the penal colony, the eight-hour workday is definitely exceeded due to required production quotas. The administration claims that inmates volunteer to work overtime in order to make these quotas, sometimes staying until one in the morning. The inmates themselves say it is their shop floor managers who require them to work late and on weekends. As penal colony warden Alexander Kulagin explained, two Sundays per month are usually designated workdays, with three such days at the end of the quarter.

“The administration has a purely economic interest, there’s no sadism involved. We’re only fulfilling contractual obligations to our partners. It’s nothing personal, just business.”

According to the warden, the inmates are also interested in earning money.

“It was some textile institute in Ivanovo that came up with the production quota of 150 police uniforms per shift,” Shablinsky said.

In interviews, inmates said they earned three hundred to five hundred rubles [nine to fifteen US dollars] per month, with overtime. In the presence of their supervisors, in the sewing workshop, inmates unanimously said they earned nearly a thousand rubles [thirty US dollars] a month.

“This is for backbreaking work and includes all of their overtime pay,” Shablinsky said.

Another problem, according to Shablinsky, is the casual violence women face from fellow inmates. Punishment in the form of being forbidden to enter the barracks until lights out, implemented year round, led to one of the inmates getting such severe frostbite on her hands and feet that they had to be amputated.

“I found this woman. She was afraid and dejected, but she wanted me to photograph her,” the professor said.

The story of a Gypsy woman being beaten to death in one of the dorm units where corporal punishment is employed, described by Tolokonnikova in her open letter, was also confirmed by her fellow inmates, human rights advocates said. The official cause of the thirty-year-old woman’s death was a stroke.

“The women who, according to other inmates, use force on fellow prisoners really do look dangerous, like men. I personally confronted one of their presumed victims. She refused to say anything and covered her face with her hands, but there was a yellow stripe on her badge indicating a suicide attempt. You have to see this with your own eyes,” Shablinsky said.

“I am grateful to the women who had the courage to come forward. These are desperate, exhausted women. Twenty-eight-year-old Natalia Karatina spent several months in solitary,” Shablinsky said.

“You can still see traces of her feminine beauty and dignity, but she has gone all gray. She’s most afraid of losing her teeth. One has already been knocked out. And she is supposed to get out in November.”

HRC member Maria Kannabikh was more subdued in her assessment of the situation at the penal colony. In an interview with RIA Novosti, she said she had met with Tolokonnikova, who “looked fine,” and whose cell was warm.

“I met with women who work with Tolokonnikova, and they assured me there were no conflicts and that Tolokonnikova is a normal person,” said the Public Chamber member.

Kannabikh verified that the inmates actually do work eleven- or twelve-hour shifts periodically.

“The women I spoke with told me this happened from time to time when there was a rush order,” the Public Chamber member explained.

Meanwhile, rights advocates and relatives of inmates at neighboring Men’s Penal Colony No. 12 (PC-12) said that nearly thirty inmates at that facility have gone on hunger strike fearing for their lives following threats from the prison administration. Gulagu.net project coordinator Mikhail Senkevich notified Gazeta.Ru of this.

“There are even more people there who have been on hunger strike for several days now. Official complaints have been filed. No one is responding to them,” Senkevich said.

Valentina Savinova, an acquaintance of a PC-12 inmate, reported the same thing. She provided Gazeta.Ru with a video appeal from the inmates, as well as a secret audio recording of a conversation with inmate Yuri Zhernovykh, where the latter explains that he is unable to continue paying the prison administration the money they extort from prisoners. According to Savinova, similar evidence and complaints have been sent to the Investigative Committee and Prosecutor’s Office.

A source released from PC-12 several months ago who wished to remain anonymous for his own safety told Gazeta.Ru there was a longstanding practice at the institution of beating and threatening inmates who had fallen afoul of the administration. Last September, Mordovia Federal Penitentiary Service personnel beat several inmates during a search. One of them, Alexei Kaknayev, documented his injuries and wrote a statement to investigating authorities. The same day, after lights out, he was summoned to the penal colony’s headquarters. The young man was later found hanged in the clothes storage room in his dorm unit.

“Most likely, they had threatened to rape him,” the informant speculated.

The press service of the Mordovian Federal Penitentiary Service was unavailable for comment throughout the day.

Photo by Ilya Shablinsky

Translated by Bela Shayevich

Originally published on the web site of The Voice Project. The Voice Project’s Pussy Riot Support Fund is used to keep Nadya and Masha clothed, supplied, visited and monitored in the labor camps (this is critical for their ongoing safety), and for their legal expenses and children’s care. For more information or to donate: voiceproject.org/pussyriot