Month: August 2012

Pussy Riot conducts a typing school

On By Patrick ArmstrongIn ACCUSATIONS, PROPAGANDA, LIES AND NONSENSE

http://us-russia.org/80-pussy-riot-conducts-a-typing-school.html

JRL/2011/ 151/18

PUSSY RIOT CONDUCTS A TYPING SCHOOL

As we all know, a group calling itself Pussy Riot staged a stunt in Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral in February. Three members were arrested and have been sentenced to two years in jail. Which, less time served in “preventative detention” which counts twice, amounts to 14 months in prison. With the possibility of parole.

I’m not here going to talk about what they said and did in the church or any of the stunts that they pulled before or during the trial that probably extended the process. I’m not even sure of my own opinion about what should have happened to them. My concern here is the suspicious unanimity of coverage in the Western media.

We hear much about how they are mothers, as if there were some hitherto unknown legal principle that mothers get a free pass. [Note Eugene Ivanov has corrected me: there is a provision on Russian law for clemency towards pregnant women and mothers of small children which was not applied in this case. But, even so, I do not recall and Western outlet pointing this fact out.] We are told their ages and they are described as a “punk band” or sometimes as a “feminist punk band”. They are protesters against Putin. And, of course, it is taken for granted that Putin is really the law and judge in the case. Der Spiegel has all the memes. Masha Lipman misses out telling us that some are mothers. A particularly vapid piece in the New York Times about their style misses the mother part too. But a piece in Huffington Post gets them all in. An especially absurd piece in the Globe and Mail hits all the notes – and more: “Like the Pussy Riot heroines, whose names should be written with markers across all of our bodies, if only to remember an era in which we, too, were not afraid.” The Guardian gets them all in. As does the Bellona NGO. Something not mentioned in all the stuff about Putin and the Russian Church being in cahoots is that both the Chief Mufti and the Chief Rabbi also supported Putin).

There is a great deal of information about Pussy Riot to be found on the vibrant Russian blogosphere but, it seems, few Western media outlets bothered to look. Here for example (Warning VERY NSFW) are photos of another of their performances, albeit under another name, (sex in a museum in 2008). Further information here. No music then. And no charges or arrests either. Or another performance involving chickens and a grocery store in 2010 (again under a previous name – go to 2:29). Again neither music nor arrests. So “punk band” is hardly a complete description. The reader is also invited to compare the actual film of the cathedral event with the edited version. Quite a difference; that alone ought to set reporters to wondering if they were being manipulated. In short, there was some background that could have been examined but wasn’t: all we heard was young, mothers, punk music band and political. And this was all spun into a story that Putin was cracking down on political dissent. But they, and their source group, Voyna, had been political before and the authorities ignored them. Perhaps they wanted more attention. But, in the Cathedral church of Moscow – with all its history – their latest stunt did result in an arrest.

Russia, like other countries, has laws about public order even if the Russians (and, as we will see, the Ukrainians) quaintly call it “hooliganism”. Here is New York City’s and the UK’s for example. Poland has a law against blasphemy and an individual has been fined for something she said in an interview (but not in a church). But the standard story did not mention this and often barely hinted that the charges were not that the young mothers were protesting Putin (something rather common and even placid these days) but committing a public order disturbance and insulting religion. Furthermore, numerous Western countries have “hate crime” legislation and people are punished – even jailed – for that. But all we heard was young, mothers, punk music band and political. The most hyperbolic (and idiotic) headline was surely “Pussy Riot trial ‘worse than Soviet era’”. No, actually, it wasn’t: lack of vegan food is not quite the same as the “conveyer” or “beat, beat and beat again”. The Guardian headline creators might want to read their Solzhenitsyn again – a required text in Russian schools, by the way.

In short, Western consumers of its media outlets were treated to a very partial story indeed and to one version. Little effort was made to research any background. It was typing not reporting.

So who wrote the script that so many media outlets faithfully re-typed? Alexander Goldfarb perhaps: we are told that he “set up Pussy Riot’s legal fund in the United States”. He turns out to be the Executive Director of the International Foundation for Civil Liberties which was set up by Boris Berezovskiy. Given that Berezovskiy has more than once said that his aim in life is to bring Putin down by whatever methods, why would any supposedly impartial reporter re-type his press releases? Goldfarb was also a key player in that other media re-typing exercise, the death of Litvinenko, and was the source of much of that story. Some say there are other manipulators: the US State Department or its innumerable funded groups. (NOTE: The reader is reminded that, when all the normal sources of “news” are re-typing the same press release, reality must be sought elsewhere at the margins. Click through the references in these last two and decide for yourself how plausible their arguments are.)

Last Friday a crucifix erected near the former headquarters of the Soviet political police in Kiev in commemoration of Ukrainians who died in the communist years was cut down by one of the members of FEMEN (also Dear Reader, thanks to laws in many Western countries, the URL is also NSFW). She was young, possibly a mother, not apparently a punk band member (but a self-confessed feminist) and there was a political motive. The Ukrainian authorities are preparing a charge of hooliganism against her too. Will this also become a huge story? Perhaps it will, given that Berezovskiy doesn’t like President Yanukovych. And, dare I suggest it, now that Ukraine does not have a government that wants to get in to NATO. Stay tuned.

 

RUSSIAN FEDERATION SITREP 23 August 2012

On By Patrick ArmstrongIn RF SITREP

RUSSIA INC. Some reported numbers for the first half of the year. The Finance Ministry reports that the federal budget is running a surplus of about US$8 billion. GDP is up 4.4% and industrial production by 3.2%. By today’s standards, these aren’t bad numbers. Population is reported to have grown by about 85,000 since the beginning of the year although it was immigration that made it into growth: despite improvements, natural increase is still negative. However births are growing faster than deaths. A VTsIOM poll finds that Russians say they are paying more attention to their health.

POPULARITY. I’m a little mystified by this report that a Levada poll finds a significant drop in Putin’s rating since the election. The Levada site (Google translation) doesn’t show any such thing: if anything his rating has squeaked up a bit. (Mind you the first is referring to an August poll while the site is still in July: but that quick a drop seems improbable). The opinion of whether Russia is going forwards or into a dead end is not much changed either. So as far as I can see Levada data doesn’t show any particular trend this year. However, taking it from August 1999, we do see a downward trend for both Putin and Medvedev but an upward trend in how the country is doing. Putin’s slippage from the heights began gently around the autumn of 2008 but the “index” (approve minus disapprove) only went below 50 at the end of 2010 and he’s still 67:32. (other politicians can, of course, only dream of such numbers). Does this mean anything? Perhaps Russians are getting tired of him (slowly); perhaps they are becoming more healthily sceptical about their leaders; perhaps Russia’s economic performance, which while good by today’s standards is less than it used to be, is affecting them. I still think that Putin’s decision to return was a mistake. We will see.

SPACE LAUNCHES. We hear about the failures but less about the successes. Nonetheless the routine reliability of Russian space launch technology (an important money earner and a big percentage of all world launches) has faltered of late. Medvedev made the usual dire threats and ordered immediate roposals and the Director of the Khrunichev Plant, where most of them are made, resigned. One of the more tiresome Russian government traditions is the Boss threatening-demanding a plan tomorrow-firing someone cycle. Seldom has much effect.

LEBEDEV. Still no reaction from the powers. He has asked the government to buy his Aeroflot shares.

WTO. Russia is now formally a member after 18 years of negotiation (is that the world record?). Jackson-Vanik is still in effect in the USA which apparently makes sense to somebody.

UNITED RUSSIA. Medvedev, who leads it, has promised to purge the party. Heard that one before: not an easy job given that United Russia is the party of kratotropes.

POLICE REFORM. Medvedev’s reform has to be judged… incomplete. Four police were found guilty of abusing detainees. Charges were laid in the police torture case in Tatarstan. A Moscow police officer was detained with almost 1 kg of cocaine. The idea was that senior policemen would be, as it were, interviewed for their jobs. And juniors would be interviewed by seniors. A good idea, one would think, but the sequencing seems to have been wrong. The first stage should have been done first (a third of the seniors were let got) and then the survivors of that step should have completed the second. Anyway, 90% of juniors were retained. Too many.

PUSSY RIOT. The Pussy riot defendants were sentenced to 2 years less time served (which counts double) so another 14 months in jail. They will appeal. Thereupon the Church asked the authorities to show mercy. There have been some small protests. And, in this connection, here is a case to watch and see how the authorities in Kiev handle it. My thoughts on the strange unanimity of Western coverage on the case here. Speaking of which, I am interested to see some second thoughts appearing in Western media outlets: here and here. That having been said, I suspect that both PR and the authorities now wish they had taken a different approach: PR pleads guilty, apologises and is fined a couple of thousand rubles. But, maybe they’ll make some money.

North Caucasus. Quite a lot of jihadist attacks reported. I recommend the regular reports by my colleague Gordon Hahn who follows these things much more closely than I do.

UKRAINE. Yanukovych signed the law ratifying a free trade zone agreement with the CIS. Kiev is still working on a free trade agreement with the EU.

© Patrick Armstrong Analysis, Ottawa, Canada (see http://www.russiaotherpointsofview.com/)

Pussy Riot Conducts a Typing School

On By Patrick ArmstrongIn ACCUSATIONS, PROPAGANDA, LIES AND NONSENSE, WAR ON RUSSIA

http://us-russia.org/80-pussy-riot-conducts-a-typing-school.html

JRL/2011/ 151/18

As we all know, a group calling itself Pussy Riot staged a stunt in Moscow’s Christ the Saviour Cathedral in February. Three members were arrested and have been sentenced to two years in jail. Which, less time served in “preventative detention” which counts twice, amounts to 14 months in prison. With the possibility of parole.

I’m not here going to talk about what they said and did in the church or any of the stunts that they pulled before or during the trial that probably extended the process. I’m not even sure of my own opinion about what should have happened to them. My concern here is the suspicious unanimity of coverage in the Western media.

We hear much about how they are mothers, as if there were some hitherto unknown legal principle that mothers get a free pass. [Note Eugene Ivanov has corrected me: there is a provision on Russian law for clemency towards pregnant women and mothers of small children which was not applied in this case. But, even so, I do not recall and Western outlet pointing this fact out.] We are told their ages and they are described as a “punk band” or sometimes as a “feminist punk band”. They are protesters against Putin. And, of course, it is taken for granted that Putin is really the law and judge in the case. Der Spiegel has all the memes. Masha Lipman misses out telling us that some are mothers. A particularly vapid piece in the New York Times about their style misses the mother part too. But a piece in Huffington Post gets them all in. An especially absurd piece in the Globe and Mail hits all the notes – and more: “Like the Pussy Riot heroines, whose names should be written with markers across all of our bodies, if only to remember an era in which we, too, were not afraid.” The Guardian gets them all in. As does the Bellona NGO. Something not mentioned in all the stuff about Putin and the Russian Church being in cahoots is that both the Chief Mufti and the Chief Rabbi also supported Putin).

There is a great deal of information about Pussy Riot to be found on the vibrant Russian blogosphere but, it seems, few Western media outlets bothered to look. Here for example (Warning VERY NSFW) are photos of another of their performances, albeit under another name, (sex in a museum in 2008). Further information here. No music then. And no charges or arrests either. Or another performance involving chickens and a grocery store in 2010 (again under a previous name – go to 2:29). Again neither music nor arrests. So “punk band” is hardly a complete description. The reader is also invited to compare the actual film of the cathedral event with the edited version. Quite a difference; that alone ought to set reporters to wondering if they were being manipulated. In short, there was some background that could have been examined but wasn’t: all we heard was young, mothers, punk music band and political. And this was all spun into a story that Putin was cracking down on political dissent. But they, and their source group, Voyna, had been political before and the authorities ignored them. Perhaps they wanted more attention. But, in the Cathedral church of Moscow – with all its history – their latest stunt did result in an arrest.

Russia, like other countries, has laws about public order even if the Russians (and, as we will see, the Ukrainians) quaintly call it “hooliganism”. Here is New York City’s and the UK’s for example. Poland has a law against blasphemy and an individual has been fined for something she said in an interview (but not in a church). But the standard story did not mention this and often barely hinted that the charges were not that the young mothers were protesting Putin (something rather common and even placid these days) but committing a public order disturbance and insulting religion. Furthermore, numerous Western countries have “hate crime” legislation and people are punished – even jailed – for that. But all we heard was young, mothers, punk music band and political. The most hyperbolic (and idiotic) headline was surely “Pussy Riot trial ‘worse than Soviet era’”. No, actually, it wasn’t: lack of vegan food is not quite the same as the “conveyer” or “beat, beat and beat again”. The Guardian headline creators might want to read their Solzhenitsyn again – a required text in Russian schools, by the way.

In short, Western consumers of its media outlets were treated to a very partial story indeed and to one version. Little effort was made to research any background. It was typing not reporting.

So who wrote the script that so many media outlets faithfully re-typed? Alexander Goldfarb perhaps: we are told that he “set up Pussy Riot’s legal fund in the United States”. He turns out to be the Executive Director of the International Foundation for Civil Liberties which was set up by Boris Berezovskiy. Given that Berezovskiy has more than once said that his aim in life is to bring Putin down by whatever methods, why would any supposedly impartial reporter re-type his press releases? Goldfarb was also a key player in that other media re-typing exercise, the death of Litvinenko, and was the source of much of that story. Some say there are other manipulators: the US State Department or its innumerable funded groups. (NOTE: The reader is reminded that, when all the normal sources of “news” are re-typing the same press release, reality must be sought elsewhere at the margins. Click through the references in these last two and decide for yourself how plausible their arguments are.)

Last Friday a crucifix erected near the former headquarters of the Soviet political police in Kiev in commemoration of Ukrainians who died in the communist years was cut down by one of the members of FEMEN (also Dear Reader, thanks to laws in many Western countries, the URL is also NSFW). She was young, possibly a mother, not apparently a punk band member (but a self-confessed feminist) and there was a political motive. The Ukrainian authorities are preparing a charge of hooliganism against her too. Will this also become a huge story? Perhaps it will, given that Berezovskiy doesn’t like President Yanukovych. And, dare I suggest it, now that Ukraine does not have a government that wants to get in to NATO. Stay tuned.

RUSSIAN FEDERATION SITREP 9 August 2012

On By Patrick ArmstrongIn RF SITREP

PRESSURE. A prominent Russian businessman says he will sell all his assets in Russia and retire so as to end what he calls “relentless pressure from the authorities”, specifically from “Directorate K of the [FSB]”. He believes this began when the newspaper he part owns began an investigation of corruption in the FSB. He says he does not think the Kremlin is behind “my business… being purposefully and deliberately destroyed” but would like it to clarify its position. One of the Duumvirate ought to say something and soon.

DIRECTION. A recent poll finds an increasing pessimism about the way Russia is developing: 35% think in the wrong direction (up from 26% in Feb 2009) and 31% in the right direction (down from 52%). However, before this is shoved into the latest idiotic editorial about the imminent collapse of “the Putin system”, we need a little context. 61% of Americans think their country is on the wrong track; 73% of British and 56% of EU inhabitants do too. So, as the real world runs, Russians are pretty upbeat.

RUSSIA INC. The EBRD has cut its growth forecast for Russia from 4.2% to 3.1% in 2012 and from 4.3% to 3.3% for 2013. It foresees lower demand for commodities in the Eurozone. Still, by present standards, not bad.

OSSETIA WAR. In a film just out, several former senior generals say Medvedev should have given the order to move into South Ossetia a day earlier and many died because he didn’t . Medvedev defended his decision. (I thought that Putin &Co didn’t allow any public disagreements). I will be amused to see how Saakashvili’s flacks try to spin this, given that Saakashvili’s final version of the story was that they did move a day early.

PUSSY RIOT. The trial began on the 30th and ended yesterday. The judge promises to hand down her verdict on the 17th. Many absurdities about this event: Anatoly Karlin takes the time to dissect a Guardian editorial on the subject – much more time than the writers took to string together memes of the moment, half truths and untruths. I recommend reading it to illustrate just how biased, slipshod and dishonest so much commentary on Russia is. Alexander Mercouris has written a long legal analysis of the case. By the way, unlike the MSM, which is happy to throw around generalisations without sources, both Karlin and Mercouris provide many hyperlinks: they don’t make stuff up. A question to ponder: given that Putin also has the support of Russia’s Chief Mufti, when will we see Pussy Riot call him Putin’s “bitch” too?

SLOW AND STEADY. Not for the first time, Putin laid out his ruling strategy: “Move gradually, calmly, with the necessary rotation, but move forward”.Understandable, but the time can come when caution slips into stagnation. I still think it would have been better had he not run again. I don’t think he’s run out of creativity yet, but it comes to all of us eventually.

CORRUPTION. The first corruption case over the Sochi Olympics is ready to go to court, others are being prepared. Given all the circumstances – lots of money thrown at it, pressure from the top – I’m sure that a lot of money has disappeared.

PARTIES. A potentially significant opposition party, RPR-PARNAS, was registered.

THE LAW IS SLOW. The Russian legal process is not very high-speed. The investigators have finally sent the Kushchevskaya case to court (gang war is their theory) 21 months after the crime. Four skinheads were sentenced for murder during the Manege Square riot (20 months). And two more were sentenced today for involvement in the murder of a governor in October 2002; four others having been convicted last year. I have no theories but observe that many commentators seem to expect it should go faster.

PUTIN IN UK. Putin met with the British PM and things seem to go pretty calmly. It seems that Litvinenko was not a major part of the agenda. Apparently £4 million has already been spent on the investigation and the coroner hasn’t even made a verdict of how he died yet. Not much return for the money (speaking of slow legal processes).

INTERESTING LAWS. We hear much about laws in Russia; here’s one I just heard about. It’s illegal in Lithuania to deny Soviet aggression and someone was just sentenced for doing so. Don’t hear much about that law which would seem to have the effect of turning historical arguments into criminal cases.

© Patrick Armstrong Analysis, Ottawa, Canada (see http://www.russiaotherpointsofview.com/)