News From Russia With Clubs
posted by on December 3 at 16:10 PM
Posted by Ryan S. Jackson
How badly has the situation in Russia deteriorated? The Exile, the Moscow ex-pat bi-weekly, sent editor Yasha Levine to cover a pre-election demonstration by the anti-Putin “Other Russia” coalition in St. Petersburg. Russian troops responded to the protest with a violent wave of mass-arrests, and Levine was amongst those who found himself in custody.
This is what its like to be part of the diminishing number of unfriendly journalists in Putin’s Russia:
They frog-marched me toward an ordinary Soviet delivery truck, the kind you’d see unloading kolbasa and pelmeni at your local produktovy magazin. But instead of a freezer box, the truck was equipped with a 5x5 ft. steel holding cell with a tiny door, no lights, and no holes for ventilation. It was packed so tightly with protesters that the cop had trouble stuffing me inside. Finally I was able to wedge myself in between two people; immediately the door locked behind me.Inside, the darkness was total. The air was acidic, reeking of metal, body odor, and blood.
“I’m scared, I’m really scared,” a guy to my right started whimpering. “I have claustrophobia.”
No one responded. People were too busy trying to get into a comfortable position.
Someone flicked on a lighter. Someone else shouted at him to quit wasting valuable air, so I didn’t have time to get a good count. But there seemed to be 10 to 15 people in there.
“Air! Air!” a male voice yelled from the far corner. “We don’t have anything to breathe in here! Open the door, open the door!” The steel box amplified his voice. The soundproofing killed all outside noise. I twisted around to take out my phone and call the friend I was staying with. But a male voice next to me cautioned: “Be careful! They’ll take it away!” It was no use. My friend wasn’t picking up.
I was a little freaked, too. Yabloko’s office was located less than a block away from Rodilny Dom #6, the drab Soviet maternity hospital where I was born 26 years ago. Would this also be the place where it would end for me?
Here’s The Exile’s video from the event, up to the moment where Russian troops arrested Levine:
No tear gas? No rubber bullets? No concussion grenades? These cops are freakin' amateurs.
Classy. Just when you thought that nobody knew how to do old-school fascism any more...
Has anybody looked into Putin's soul recently?
Now that Putin knows how to ATTACK his opponents. How to ATTACK the media.
Those Hillary ATTACKS are nuttin'.
@3... and lived?
Thanks for the excellent and informative post.
Yes, thanks.
As a side note on odd-bedfellows: one of Garry Kasporov's chief co-conspirators in the opposition is Edward Limonov, who was a longtime writer for the eXile...the alt-paper that makes the Stranger look prim, proper, respectable and decidedly non-snarky
Oh, and following up on Fnarf's reference to looking into Putin's soul. Almost every Russian I know makes reference to Bush's inane remark and then most burst out laughing and say "Putin was KGB and FSB, he is mafia." For them this seals the deal for regarding Bush as a half-wit at best.
Dear @7,
A copy of Memoirs of a Russian Punk sits on the very desk I'm writing at. The post-Taibbi eXile appears to be turning around, if slowly. The days with Ames as the lone editor were grim.
Memoirs is great book.
And yes, Ames needed some help.
People who talk about the United States becoming a police state might want to take this opportunity to examine their position in some greater depth.
Also, isn't it funny that American politicians accuse every leader in the world of being "a Hitler" except the ones who might actually qualify?
Relax, it's coming soon to a street in YOUR neighborhood.
Take those cell phone pics for anyone who will give a shit.
The rest will be watching NASCAR on a flat screen purchased with a no-down, no interest contract with their life as collateral.
Judah @11: Were you in Seattle in November 1999? Were you in NYC in August 2004?
"Free speech zones" behind barbed wire, catch-all obstruction statutes, mass arrests without warrants, undercover police infiltration, "no protest zones"...
No, we are not "becoming a police state." We're already there.
Let's see, Seattle on November 30, 1999? Yeah, I think I was on 6th and Pine that day, now that you mention it. I saw it all pretty up-close, and you know what?
Not a fucking police state. Nothing like what's happening in Russia. Not remotely comparable on any level.
So your argument is that just because things are worse in Russia, there's no way the US can be defined as a police state? Do you think it's an accident that we have the largest incarceration rate in the world?
Yes, that's my argument exactly. You're very clever. You perceived the very root and core of what I was attempting to convey. Keen and incisive isn't the half of it with you. I bet all your friends say so.
No, but neither would I consider our incarceration rate a clear indication that we live a police state, especially since most of the people we incarcerate are poor, and have been incarcerated for violent crimes, property crimes or drug crimes -- rather than, say, political dissidents and journalists whose incarceration is part of a totalitarian political agenda. The shit a person can say in this country and have no fear of any kind of meaningful military or judicial oppression is simply mind-boggling.
So yeah, basically you're full of shit, but I'm not going to spend all day chasing you around about it. Get yourself a tinfoil hat and a compound in Texas if it pleases you. I couldn't care less and, likely, neither could the "police state".
At least you'll be out from underfoot.
Not all police state's are created equal, and your definition is quite narrow.
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