Paul Goble
Staunton, Oct. 18 – The Putin siloviki have revived a Soviet practice that many had thought was a thing of the past: they put pressure on the relatives of those who have left the country as a means of putting pressure on those now beyond the borders of the country and as a warning to those thinking about emigrating about what will happen if they do.
This practice, especially common in Kadyrov’s Chechnya and against the Navalny movement, has now become to widespread that the Public Verdict organization has issued guidance on how family members should respond if they are visited by the siloviki (semnasem.org/articles/2022/10/18/zapreshennyj-priem).
The advice the group gives is perhaps obvious – stay calm, contact friends, use passwords rather than recognition technology on all devices, and refuse to speak with the siloviki without an attorney present – but it is a mark of just how widespread this noxious practice about which there are no good statistics has become.
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