Some of Vladimir Kara-Murza’s friends and colleagues begged him to leave Russia. Or not to return to Russia, from his visits to the West. But he insisted on going back to Russia and being in Russia, his country. He is a longtime democracy leader and human-rights activist. He worked alongside Boris Nemtsov, the Russian opposition leader, murdered in 2015. Kara-Murza himself has been nearly killed twice, in poison attacks. Now he is a political prisoner.
An Associated Press report says that “Russian authorities have opened a criminal case” against Kara-Murza and “remanded him in pre-trial detention Friday for allegedly spreading ‘false information’ about the country’s armed forces.”
The report continues,
A court in Moscow ordered Vladimir Kara-Murza Jr. held in detention until June 12. Lawyer Vadim Prokhorov told reporters that the false information case against Kara-Murza cited a March 15 speech to the Arizona House of Representatives, in which he denounced the war in Ukraine, as the basis for the latest charges. The activist rejects the accusations.
Further on, the report tells us,
Russia adopted a law criminalizing spreading false information about its military shortly after its troops rolled into Ukraine in late February. The offense is punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Human rights advocates so far have counted 32 cases targeting critics of the invasion.
The speaker of the Arizona house, Rusty Bowers, is quoted as saying, “I am deeply disturbed over news reports regarding the arrest and political persecution of Russian opposition leader Vladimir Kara-Murza. Don’t forget about these freedom fighters, like Vladimir Kara-Murza. We must remember names!”
Yes.
• In the Wall Street Journal, a report by Evan Gershkovich is headed “He Worked for Moscow’s Police for Nearly 20 Years. Then He Spoke Up About the Ukraine War.” Get this:
It was week three of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Sergei Klokov, a driver at Moscow’s police headquarters, was increasingly uneasy with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war and the way it was being portrayed in the country’s state media. He telephoned a former colleague.
Uh-oh.
“We think we are fighting fascism, but there isn’t fascism there. There isn’t,” Mr. Klokov, who is Russian-Ukrainian, told his friend. Concerned that Russian soldiers and Ukrainian civilians were dying for no reason, he implored, “Get the information out to people.”
What Mr. Klokov didn’t know was that his phone was tapped by Russian authorities.
Sure.
The March 9 call was the first of three he placed to friends that day that investigators later cited in a criminal complaint against him, one of the first known cases under a new Russian law that prohibits spreading information on the war that goes against the Kremlin line.
A little bit more:
Roughly a week after those phone calls, the 37-year-old father of two was arrested and locked up in the building where he worked, and where his wife, currently on maternity leave, also has a job as a security guard. He now faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.
More and more does Russia resemble the Soviet Union — which is unsurprising, given the gang in charge.
• In America, some people speak of “erasure.” “Stop erasing me,” a campus activist will say. “You’re erasing me. You’re subjecting me to erasure.” I thought of the word when reading this, from Julia Davis:
One of Russia’s largest textbook printers, Prosveshcheniye, has ordered editors to minimize or remove references to Ukraine and Kyiv from schoolbooks on history, literature and geography: “The task before us is to make it look like Ukraine simply does not exist.”
(Go here.)
Garry Kasparov, the chess champion, commented,
They started removing my name from Russian record books years ago. I’m in good company! But erasing a nation or nationality is preparation for further atrocities.
• President Zelensky of Ukraine said, “Russia should take care of the rights of Russian-speakers in Russia — where there is no freedom of speech, poverty thrives, and human life is worthless.”
Well said, Zelensky. Between Putin and Zelensky, there is a world of difference. People everywhere, including America, make their choices. I know what mine is.
• This may amuse you, in a grim, Soviet way. As Julia Ioffe comments, “Russian authorities have arrested these people outside the Kremlin *for holding invisible signs.*” See the people here — and imagine their signs.