Blog

 RSS Feed

  1. photo_2023-05-16_23-28-41According to the Baza telegram channel, the director of school No. 1 in the city of Pyt-Yakh, in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, Irina Kotova, complained to the police about the mother of one of the students who came to school with "yellow-blue" pigtails on the eve of Victory Day. The vigilant headmistress saw the shades of the Ukrainian flag in the schoolgirl's hairstyle, and took the "Yin-Yang" sign shaved on her head for another logo of the Azov regiment. According to the girl's mother: "The daughter herself chose bright colors of light green and blue, and the flag of Ukraine has nothing to do with it at all." The girl's mother had to explain all this in detail to the commission on juvenile affairs. It is not yet known how this story will end for the mother and the girl. Everyone remembers well the sad story of Alexey and Masha Moskalev . After the start of the so-called Special Military Operation of the Russian armed forces, the number of cases of whistleblowing has sharply increased.

    According to "Lenta.<url>" denunciations in Russia have become commonplace. Requests from ordinary Russians and professional informers to check the reliability of politicians, artists, popular bloggers and even their own relatives are pouring into law enforcement agencies and state agencies in a large stream. Most often, the reason is suspicion of a wrong position on Ukraine. In 2022, the number of applications to Roskomnadzor increased by 26 percent. According to the ministry, most of the signals received concerned the posting on the Internet of "illegal information, including fakes about the conduct of a special military operation in Ukraine."

    In my article dated 06/27/2022: "Russia is a country of unlearned lessons!", which I wrote to the decision of the Altai Regional Court of June 14, 2022 on the complaint of my lawyer Vadim Movshovich, who asked to stop, or rather to cancel the resolution of April 11, 2022 of the Oktyabrsky district court of Barnaul. In it, the court found me guilty in absentia of committing an administrative offense under part 1 of article 20.3.3 of the Code of Administrative Offences of the Russian Federation (Public actions aimed at discrediting the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation).

    In the article, I suggested that, apparently, informing will be used en masse again. One at the table was silent when the toast to the leader was raised, the second told an unpatriotic joke, and the third just didn't like someone. I do not pretend to be a prophet, unfortunately, apparently I was right in this.

    40 years ago, in 1982, Sergei Dovlatov's novel "The Zone. Notes of the overseer" is the source of one of the most famous quotes from Dovlatov: "We curse Comrade Stalin endlessly, and, of course, for the cause. And yet I want to ask — who wrote four million denunciations?" Dovlatov himself answered his question — "ordinary Soviet people," but denunciations supported the Russian government long before the appearance of Soviet people. Time will pass, and another writer exploring modern Russian history will ask a similar question. It is a pity for the country and the people who have not learned the lessons of their own history!

    Alexander Goncharenko, doctor, Russian politician and human rights activist.

  2. A human rights conference named after Yuri Markovich Schmidt, a well-known Russian human rights activist and lawyer who died in 2013, was held in Berlin on April 29 and 30.

    The event was organized with the participation of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and the support of the Liberal Modernity Center.

    In addition to human rights defenders, public figures, lawyers, journalists, civil activists, Russian politicians and their German colleagues took part in the conference. Yuri Schmidt's widow Elena Barikhnovskaya addressed the participants of the meeting with an introductory speech, and Mikhail Khodorkovsky opened the conference. The founders of the Center for Liberal Modernity, Ralph Fuchs and Marluise Beck, addressed the conference participants with a welcoming speech.

    What the above - mentioned speakers talked about can be found in a journalistic report on the website of Radio Liberty . I knew Yuri Markovich a little, he was an amazing person, a highly professional lawyer and a real human rights activist.

    The participants of the event were presented with the report "Sexualized violence in the context of the conflict in Ukraine – mechanisms for the restoration of violated rights." There was a lively and interesting story by Olga Romanova, a journalist and director of Russia Sitting, about the fixation and opposition of human rights defenders to the methods of recruiting prisoners in the Wagner PMCs, and Sergei Lagodinsky, a member of the European Parliament, about the role of international law, about the work and assistance of the European Union in the investigation of war crimes in Ukraine.

    The following topics were discussed at the panel discussions: 1) Lawsuits against the Russian state, collection of evidence and criteria for their admissibility for the International criminal Court in the forcible transfer of Ukrainian refugees, prisoners of war and children from the occupied territories; 2) Legislative changes and law enforcement practice in case of refusal of military service and surrender during the war; 3) The situation with the development of repressive mechanisms within Russia against citizens expressing an anti-war and civil position; 4) Evacuation of persecuted Russians, assistance to the civil opposition movement of Russians abroad and support for anti-war initiatives.

     Separately, I would like to focus on the discussion of Russian journalists about the fixation of the crimes of the Putin regime in the Russian media, the possibility of covering war crimes and collecting evidence in the occupied territories. The speakers in this panel discussion were media journalists – "Project", "Important Stories", "Layout", and the moderator of the discussion was Sergey Smirnov, editor-in-chief of the publication "Mediazona". The story of Tatiana Usmanova about the fate of political prisoner Andrei Pivovarov, who was my colleague on the electoral list of the Yabloko party in the elections to the State Duma of the Russian Federation in 2021, and lawyer Vadim Prokhorov about the trial of Vladimir Kara-Murza, became very close to me.

    In my opinion, Vladimir Kara-Murza and Alexei Navalny are personal prisoners and Vladimir Putin's "exchange fund" and their fate is largely in his hands. I will cite one story from prison life, another prisoner of Putin, who, fortunately, is already free. It will be about Mikhail Khodorkovsky. As it is known, Khodorkovsky served part of his prison term in the correctional colony No. 10 of the city of Krasnokamensk. As one of the newly minted members of the ONC of the Trans-Baikal Territory once told me, and in the past an employee of one of the law enforcement agencies, that during the entire period of stay in the Krasnokamensk colony of Khodorkovsky, an FSB officer seconded from Moscow was in it with the task of preventing the indulgences of serving Khodorkovsky's sentence. On the sidelines of the conference, I told Mikhail Borisovich (Khodorkovsky) this story is from his prison life.

    The fate of other political prisoners largely depends on the order, or rather the unrest that has developed in a particular zone (prison). As an example, I will name some political prisoners whom I personally know.

    This is Maria Ponomarenko, a journalist from Barnaul, sentenced to six years in prison for "fakes" about the Russian army.

    More examples. "Yablochnik" Mikhail Afanasyev, editor of the online publication "New Focus" in Khakassia and Sergey Mikhailov, founder of the weekly "Leaf" in the Altai Republic, accused of similar crimes with Maria.

    This is also Vadim Ostanin, coordinator of Navalny's headquarters in Barnaul, (charged under Article 282.1 – organization of an extremist community and under Article 239.1 – creation of a public association whose activities involve violence against citizens). I would like to wish all political prisoners perseverance, good luck, health and speedy Freedom!

    Photo 1 – Commemorative photo of the conference;

    Photo 2 – Mikhail Khodorkovsky's speech;

    Photo 3 – From left to right: lawyer Karinna Moskalenko , public figure Mikhail Khodorkovsky and human rights activist Alexander Goncharenko;

    Photo 4 – Chairman of the Committee "Civil Assistance" Svetlana Gannushkina and Alexander Goncharenko All photos from Galina Goncharenko's personal archive

     Alexander Goncharenko, doctor, politician and human rights activistАлександр Гончаренко на правозащитной конференции им Юрия ШмидтаХодорковскийСлева направо адвокат Каринна Москаленко, общественный деятель Михаил ХодорСо Светланой Ганушкиной, известная российская правозащитница