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PDF“Ex-world chess champion Garry Kasparov was among several people arrested outside the court in Moscow, where three members of Pussy Riot punk band were found guilty of hooliganism,” the BBC reports. “As Mr Kasparov was dragged to a nearby police van (above) he demanded to know why he was being arrested.”
A Moscow court today sentenced Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, Ekaterina Samutsevich, 30, and Maria Alekhina, 24, to serve two years in a penal colony.
“They are jailing the girls to intimidate all other protesters,” said independent political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin. “The country is grinding to a halt in its [political] development, like Iran or Belarus.”
The prosecution was politically-motivated, say opposition activists.
“They are in jail because it is Putin’s personal revenge,” said Alexey Navalny, a leading opposition figure. “The verdict was written by Vladimir Putin.”
The stiff sentences “signal a Kremlin refusal to tolerate dissent as the strongman seeks to retain his hold on power,” said analysts and activists:
“It is a monstrous verdict. This verdict has serious consequences for Putin’s image. But Putin does not care about his image, he cares about control,” said Oreshkin. “Just like under communism, any activity directed against the sacred ideals of the state is banned.”…
In deciding the three women’s fate, the Kremlin had to consider the political outcry the jail terms would trigger in the West and the risk of alienating Putin’s conservative supporters were it to decide to release the women. The choice was obvious, analysts said.
“The most important thing for him is to strengthen his traditional base,” said Lilia Shevtsova, an analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Centre. “He cannot afford to look weak.”
The case is “one of the worst perversions of justice in 12 years of Putinism,” according to one assessment:
It follows a gradual clenching of the judicial fist around those who challenge president Vladimir Putin and the system he has built. Despite the pretence that Russia’s courts are independent and its laws against political activism no harsher than the west’s, it is evident that both are used in selective and targeted ways to silence a growing minority of dissenters.
Mr Putin may never see that his Soviet-era mindset is bad for Russia. But the amount of noise created by a handful of punks should make him realise that his strategy of centralising both the political and the economic space, relying on oil and gas revenues to buy support, is ultimately counterproductive. The crackdown on Pussy Riot – and their supporters in the street – is backfiring spectacularly.
… as illustrated, perhaps, by the news that Putin’s approval ratings have hit a record low.
“The image of three young women facing down an inexorable system of unfair justice and an oppressive state has crystallized for many in the West what is wrong with human rights in Russia,” writes Rachel Denber, deputy director for Europe and Central Asia at Human Rights Watch:
During the Soviet era, the human rights landscape in Russia was stark. But since then the situation has been harder to figure out, often making it easier for outsiders simply to give the government a pass. But the devil is in the details.
It has been incredibly difficult to pin down any involvement of officials in the beatings and murders of investigative journalists and human rights activists. And the government, while not silencing civil society groups outright, tries to marginalize, discredit, and humiliate them, and crush them with heavy-handed bureaucracy, trumped-up accusations, threats and the like.
Whatever misdemeanor the three women incurred for their antics in the church should not have been transformed by the authorities into a criminal offense that in effect punishes them for their speech. It’s typical, though, of how the authorities try to keep a lid on controversial issues. The Russian think tank SOVA* has documented dozens of cases in recent years in which the authorities used the threat of extremism charges to silence critics.
The Pussy Riot case may be only the beginning of a broader crackdown which may be signaled by the prosecution of Navalny, says Carroll Colley, an analyst in Eurasia Group’s Eurasia practice:
He’ll probably get prison time, a verdict that would enrage the opposition (the upper-middle classes in Moscow and a handful of other major cities) and probably provoke greater unrest. But the outcome would be largely supported as a sign of strength by Russia’s majority, the working middle and lower classes that support the current system. It will also send yet another signal that the Kremlin’s patience with the democratic opposition has reached its limit.
“Too often, foreign governments have resorted to wishful thinking about the direction Russia is heading,” Denber suggest. “Talking about human rights at a high level — where all things in Russia are decided — is unpleasant business. It might be hard, but Russia won’t respect other governments if they shy away.”
The Pussy Riot “case should also give pause to Russia’s political opposition, much of which has kept an awkward distance from the band,” the FT suggests:
Apart from tactics, some of the ambivalence no doubt reflects that opposition politicians took offence, too, or simply do not understand this form of protest.
But those wanting a liberal society must accept that pluralism is not limited to what you like. Moreover, Pussy Riot’s antics may have done more to undermine Mr Putin’s power than anything the opposition has managed. That is what political art can do, even when it is hard to fathom.
*SOVA is supported by the National Endowment for Democracy, the Washington-based democracy assistance group.
