Tag: war veterans

GOOP

Veterans of the special military operation and combat veterans will be able to teach the new subject “Fundamentals of the Security and Defense of the Motherland” in schools after undergoing retraining at the State University of Education (GOOP), according to Education Minister Sergei Kravtsov, who was speaking at a plenary session during the Russian national pedagogical forum “Memory Is Sacred.”

“A center for retraining veterans of the special military operation and combat veterans as teachers was created this year at GOOP to implement a new subject area with a priority on practical training in the new subject ‘Fundamentals of the Security and Defense of the Motherland,'” Kravtsov said.

The official logo of the State University of Education (GOOP)

According to the minister, the basic military training module would be enhanced in this subject, which is being implemented as part of the “Fundamentals of Health and Safety” curriculum. The new subject would be trialed this year, and it would be taught in schools beginning in the next academic year, he added.

On June 30, Kravtsov said that, as part of the subject, schoolchildren would gain knowledge of the “role the defense of the country plays in its peaceful socio-economic development and the current complexion of our our Armed Forces.” Schoolchildren would be introduced to concepts such as “military duty” and “military service.” The minister emphasized that the load on schoolchildren would not increase—the number of classroom hours would remain the same.

GOOP’s acting rector Irina Kokoyeva told Vedomosti that the Apex Center for Military-Patriotic Education had been operating at the university since September 1. One of the center’s focus areas is the professional development and retraining of special operation veterans as coordinators of military-patriotic clubs and teachers of the subject “Fundamentals of the Security and Defense of the Motherland.” “We plan to recruit a pilot group in this focus area. Information about the conditions and criteria for recruitment will be posted on the university’s official website in the near future,” she added.

Tuition for veterans of the special operation will be free, Olga Kazakova, head of the State Duma’s education committee, told Vedomosti. According to her, the program at the training center will help veterans who don’t have the requisite knowledge in the fields of child psychology or pedagogy. The deputy also recalled that it was the education committee’s initiative to establish the center. “Together with the State Duma’s defense committee, we are forming a working group on the teaching of this subject. And, of course, we will be directly involved in the process of preparing the curriculum, teachers, and the facilities and resources for these lessons,” she added.

All people, regardless of whether they were involved in the special operation, must undergo special psychological tests to be cleared to work with children, says clinical psychologist Ilya Gavin. “It is good practice to check any category of people working with children. People come in all shapes and sizes, including those with PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder],” the expert said.

Per the Health Ministry’s standing order No. 342n, all teaching staff are required, as of 1 September 2022, to undergo a psychiatric examination to be cleared to work with children. Previously, teachers were only required to undergo an annual medical examination, as well as an examination when applying for a job. Prior to 2022, employees of educational institutions underwent psychiatric examination at least once every five years.

According to Gavin, the time it takes to recover from PTSD and return to everyday life directly depends on the severity of the disorder, because it can also be accompanied by the emergence of addictions. “The rehabilitation period can vary from three months to a year. The PTSD treatment protocol also includes ten to fifteen sessions of work with a psychologist once a week,” Gavin concluded.

Source: Anastasia Mayer, “Duma readying retraining program for special operation veterans to teach in schools: soldiers will gain knowledge in child psychology and pedagogy,” Vedomosti, 7 September 2023. Translated by the Russian Reader

GENEVA, June 15 (Reuters) – A group of U.N. experts said on Thursday they had written to Moscow raising concerns about the use of torture by Russian military forces on Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war.

The U.N. experts said in a statement the torture included electric shocks, hoodings and mock executions and had been carried out to extract intelligence, force confessions or in response to alleged support for Ukraine’s forces.

It had resulted in damage to internal organs, cracked bones and fractures, strokes and psychological traumas, they said.

A spokesperson for Russia’s diplomatic mission in Geneva did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Moscow has previously denied torturing or mistreating prisoners of war and says it does not deliberately target civilians in Ukraine.

While torture allegations have previously been levelled against both sides in the 15-month conflict, the team of U.N. independent experts said Russian forces’ methods may be “state-endorsed”.

The consistency and methods of alleged torture suggested “a level of coordination, planning and organisation, as well as the direct authorisation, deliberate policy or official tolerance from superior authorities”, according to U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture Alice Jill Edwards, who sent the letter on 12 June alongside several other independent experts.

“Obeying a superior order or policy direction cannot be invoked as justification for torture, and any individual involved should be promptly investigated and prosecuted by independent authorities,” she said.

Under the U.N. system, a government has 60 days to give a formal response.

Source: “UN experts raise ‘widespread’ torture concerns with Russia,” Reuters, 15 June 2023

The War as Holy Writ

Victory Day parade in Moscow, May 9, 2016
Victory Day parade in Moscow, May 9, 2016

Communists Propose Equating Feelings of War Veterans with Feelings of Religious Believers
Grani.ru
May 8, 2016

A group of Communist Party MPs plans to submit a law bill to the State Duma that would criminalize insulting the feelings of war veterans and stipulate a punishment of up to three years of forced labor. As Gazeta.ru writes, if the draft law is adopted, Article 148 of the Criminal Code (violating the right to freedom of conscience and religion) would be amended.

The newly amended article, 148.1, is entitled “Insulting the feelings of Great Patriotic War [Second World War] veterans.” The Communists will send the bill to the government and the Supreme Court for review on May 10, immediately after the holidays.

There are three paragraphs in the new law. The first paragraph stipulates punishment for “public actions expressing clear disrespect for society and committed with the intent of insulting the feelings of Great Patriotic War veterans by deliberately distorting information about the Great Patriot War, or humiliating or belittling the heroism of the Armed Forces of the USSR.”

Violation of the law would be punishable by a fine of up to 300,000 rubles, or up to 240 hours of community service, or up to one year of forced labor.

The second paragraph stipulates criminal liability for “dismantling, moving, destroying or damaging Great Patriotic War monuments,” even if they are not listed as Great Patriotic War cultural heritage sites. In this case, a violation would be punishable by a fine of up to one million rubles, or up to 360 hours of community service, or up to one year of forced labor.

The maximum penalties are prescribed in paragraph three and cover the same actions, as listed above, if they are performed on May 9, or involve the abuse of office, or are committed by someone who has already been convicted of the same violation. In this case, the offender faces a fine of up to four million rubles, or up to 480 hours of community service, or up to three years of forced labor, and a ban on holding certain positions during the period in question.

Communist Sergei Obukhov, who is spearheading the initiative, coauthored the law on “insulting the feelings of religious believers,” adopted by the Duma in 2013 in the wake of the Pussy Riot trial.

In the explanatory note to the new law, Obukhov defends the need to protect the feelings of war veterans, drawing parallels with the adoption of law on insulting the feelings of religious believers. According to him, that law “does not extend to the belief in goodness and justice, the ideals for which the veterans of the Great Patriotic War fought.”

According to Obukhov, he and his colleagues have tried to draft the most non-repressive law possible, so the punishments stipulated do not include imprisonment. Obukhov calls the bill a “full-fledged legal mechanism for defending their truth about that terrible war as well as criminal protection of their honor and dignity.”

In November 2013, A Just Russia MP Oleg Mikheyev proposed punishing those who insulted the memory of the Great Patriotic War with up to seven years in prison or a fine of one million rubles. Mikheyev submitted a draft of amendments to the Criminal Code and Criminal Procedural Code to the State Duma.

Mikheyev proposed adding an article entitled “Insulting the memory of the Great Patriotic War” to the Criminal Code. The offense was described as follows: “Actions expressing clear disrespect for society and insulting the memory of the events, participants, veterans, and victims of the Great Patriotic War, and committed at the sites of Great Patriotic War monuments and the burial grounds of those involved in the Great Patriotic War.”

The draft law stipulated a fine of between 500,000 and one million rubles or the amount of the convicted offender’s income for a period of three to four years, or a prison term of up to seven years. Mikheyev explained this choice by analogy with Criminal Code Article 148 (insulting the feeling of religious believers), “insofar as both articles deal with the spiritual realm of human life, the realm of values.” As an example of “insulting the memory” of the war, he cited the articles of journalist Alexander Podrabinek.

In April 2014, Irina Yarovaya, head of the Duma’s security and anti-corruption committee, proposed criminalizing “desecration of days of Russian military glory and memorable dates” connected with the Great Patriotic War. The United Russia MP said the relevant amendments would be inserted into a draft law on “rehabilitating Nazism” during its second reading.

“We will propose equating liability for this crime with the liability for desecrating burial sites dedicated to the fight against fascism [sic] or victims of Nazism,” said Yarovaya.

Individuals accused of “desecrating days of military glory” were to face up to three years in prison, forced labor of up to five years, arrest for a period of three to six months, or five years in a penal colony.

Yarovaya said she had found a post on a social network containing a negative assessment of the May 9 holiday.

“I think such statements should be assessed not just morally or ethically, but from the viewpoint of criminal law,” Yarovaya said in this connection. “Because it is a deliberate crime aimed at desecrating the memory of the Great Patriotic War.”

Translated by the Russian Reader. Photo, above, courtesy of Oleg Yakovlev/RBC