Paul
Goble
Staunton, October 13 – Political
prisoners in the Russian Federation are treated much less harshly today than
they were a decade ago, the result of an expanded number of public organizations
that focus on their plight and the spread of I-Phones and Twitter messaging that mean police are
far more worried that any abuses by them will
be quickly exposed.
That was the conclusion of
participants in a meeting on Friday organized by the United Democrats
organization who said that however much police and jailors abuse political prisoners
now, they do so far less frequently and openly than they did at the beginning
of the Putin era (mbk-news.appspot.com/suzhet/redko-kogda-nas-ne-izbival/).
The gathering featured three panels:
the first consisted of former political prisoners who shared their experiences,
the second was made up of activists who have worked to protect and defend
political prisoners, and the third by both who then assessed the current state
of the defense of political prisoners in Russia.
In the first
panel, Roman Popov, a former member of the National-Bolshevik Party and now a
journalist for MBKh media, said that the situation with regard to political
prisoners had certainly improved since the time of his incarceration in
2006-2008. Then, the police acted with the certainty that whatever they did,
they would not be punished.
Now, as a result of the increase in
the number of rights activists, media focusing on political prisoners, the
blogosphere, they have no such confidence, Popov said; and consequently, they
act with far greater restraint. There are still excesses, but they are not as
common as they were.
Mariya Alekhina, a member of Pussy
Riot who was in jail in 2012-2013, agreed.
She suggested, however, that the greatest contribution to the improvement
had been made by I-phones and Twitter, technologies that allow prisoners or
those around them to report about what is occurring and allow activists to
share information more readily.
But Nikolay Kavkazsky who was
confined following the Bolonoye protests, said that on the other hand, the
system itself was less transparent than it once was because the authorities
have excluded outside observers from the public commissions that are supposed
to be allowed to report on what goes on inside prisons.
Other speakers, including Andrey
Pivovarov of Open Russia, and some of the participants in the Moscow Affair
including Daniil Konon, Vladislav Barabanov, and Aydar Gubaydullin, said the critical
factor for political prisoners is maintaining a tie with the outside world.
Only that acts as a constraint on the police.
In the second panel, Sergey Davidis
of Memorial, Alla Frolova of OVD-Info, Lev Ponomaryev of For Human Rights and
Vladimir Vorontsov of the Police Ombudsman Project said their groups had been
able to achieve a great deal but that now the forces of the authorities are
being directed against them to limit their activities.
And in the third panel, the new
generation of activists said that the situation had become better this year
with the successful release from jail to house arrest of several activists but
its members warned against being satisfied with what has been accomplished.
They called on those concerned about political prisoners to make better use of
the media to protect them.
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