Paul Goble
Staunton, June 2 – It has long been common practice for Russian police and other siloviki to plant drugs when they conduct searches on those they wish to bring charges against, but now they have adopted an additional strategy – planting SIM cards on such people, according to the Kabardino-Balkar Regional Center for the Defense of Human Rights Defense.
The Center has letters from six Muslims who were arrested last months and who say that when the authorities searched their homes, they planted SIM cards (zapravakbr.ru/index.php/30-uncategorised/1978-rodstvenniki-zaderzhannykh-musulman-edinoglasno-zayavlyayut-chto-v-khode-obyska-im-byli-podbrosheny-sim-karty).
Because a SIM card, as the Subscriber Identity Module is known, allows users to connect with others and stores information about those connections, planting such devices allows the authorities to claim those they have targeted are connected with others whom the powers that be have identified as extremist when in fact those targeted are not.
The critical importance of SIM cards is familiar to anyone who has a cellphone or even watches police procedurals on television because getting access to such cards or having them disposed of by those who fear they will be exposed. As they have done in other ways, the Russian authorities are now turning the tables.
As so often with other tactics, Moscow appears to be launching this new way of fabricating evidence against its opponents in Muslim areas; but it is likely to spread to other parts of the country and population and become a major threat to all those who are at odds with the Kremlin.
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