One man's "anti-corruption blogger" is another man's the "US-funded shit-stirring puppet". It's not all exactly black and white, but it is 100% political.
Although, the charges may be true, the case is undoubtedly politically motivated. Incriminated $500K is a tiny drop in the ocean of "approved" corruption routinely carried out by the state officials and their affiliated companies.
When a big fish is "caught" (mostly due to "falling out of favor", not actual crime committed), if it's of the same "party", it's gently ousted out of their position and/or the country for a comfortable retirement. If an opposition - a fancy, exemplary trial is conducted... unless they slip away to the UK :)
Wait, isn't Russia the "first to stand against human rights violations carried out by the powerful rather than the powerless"? You kidder, you, Edward Snowden.
Exactly what I was thinking. Snowden is either highly delusional or completely out of options. As soon as he doesn't play ball with Putin, he'll be in jail with all the other troublemakers.
Of course he's out of options - you'd think an NSA employee would know that Russia isn't exactly a bastion of freedom and justice... But jailtime is worse...
That's Russia for you. Anybody going against the corrupt ruling party is either killed or imprisoned.
Actually, it's worse than that. The conviction rate in Russia is something like 99%, meaning that if you get charged with a crime, you will be found guilty. There are judges that have NEVER issued an innocent verdict in their career.
By itself conviction rate is not indicator because there are different requirements for charges in different countries. It's called "inquisitorial legal system" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisitorial_system ).
Why is fighting openly a bad move? If it's true that the case that got him in jail was fabricated, he's been detained in an unjust way and he doesn't deserve it just because he fought openly. I think he'd actually deserve even more praise for being open about his identity and fighting the system directly.
I see this in this manner: smart people in Russia know that the government is evil and that it can (and will) abuse its power to ensure they reserve their power and money. They know democracy doesn't work as intended, it's a theater.
Contrary to that, people of the western world still believe that they can oppose an abusive government in courts and by voting for another government.
Well in most of the western world you CAN do precisely that (and it happens regularly). If people get pissed off with the government, they give it the boot. Unfortunately the Russian people have never had real democracy, so they don't realise that this should be the norm. In my country we would simply never put up with that shit. You see people putting up with shitty, oppressive governments all the time in countries like Zimbabwe, Russia, China, Syria, etc. Recently people in some parts of the middle east have finally realised that they can get rid of crappy governments. It's actually quite easy if the people can actually be bothered. The people of Russia did get rid of their Tsars a while back, but unfortunately they seem to have a new Tsar.
We had real democracy, in 1993-1996. Basically we democratically voted against it. Democracy is against Russian traditions, and most people either actively opposed it or passively (i.e. voting for the funniest candidate to discredit the whole system), and people were happy we gradually returned to normalcy, which is dictatorship.
More importantly, the Russian government doesn't know that this should be the norm. So they treat each attempt at a change as a treasonous coup or revolution, rounding up and silencing everyone. I'm willing to bet they go as far as a civil war if they had to fight for their power.
Having said that, when was the last time people got pissed off and gave the government the boot in a western country? It seems to me that any changes were minor, and the people in power are more or less the same group no matter who you vote for... not exactly super democratic, either...
They aren't exactly smart in the sense that they don't have any plan for government evil. They're not smart in the Paul Graham, problem-solving, bold ideas way.
Rather they are cynical and "understanding" in the grumpy old man manner.
Well, this is a bad move because it is stupid. It could not potentially result in any change. Only way a rational person can help Russian people is to work on improving educational system to help them emigrate and settle in developed countries successfully.
Also, in Russian mentality, it is not important if you committed any crime or not, it is more important if you were smart enough to not get jailed or not. Because nearly everyone who is politically or economically active commits crimes (which carries no stigma and is part of the system), and nearly everyone can be jailed either having committed a crime or not. So nobody thinks of degree or existence of any crimes he might have committed. This is not a part of the question. It is about being stupid enough to raise too much government's anger, not not leaving country in time.
That's how Russia works (and Mr. Putin has nothing to do about this, that was the norm long before him and once the system might eat himself in exactly the same way). I doubt he even benefits from this much.
That applies with almost every government, Their power is "infinitely asymmetric". Nowadays the way to gain symmetry is knowing a lot about computer security...
Not only futile, but people doing so are only reinforcing the government's case (because they show people that at least some of the 'enemies' they are pretending to fight do really exist).
Dude, wtf? Are u serious? This guy did nothing wrong. He's a journalist and it seems like you don't get the idea of freedom of speech. Maybe it's because of people like you that the Russian government can do whatever it wants.
While he was working as an advisor for Kirov district governer, he supposedly forced contracts with disadvantageus prices on state owned company with a total of 16 mln rur (roughly 500k usd).
I didn't read court documents, but I wouldn't be surprised if he actually did.
Fact that he blogged about corruption for a few years doesn't make him innocent, but government probably would never looked into it if he'd keep quiet.
Indeed, he did announce that. He had a good chance of winning this election (even with outrageos cheating from the Putin's part (another candidate is just Putin's puppet who uses his mayor's powers to embezzle money from Moscow's budget)).
He exposed the ruling party, or, to be more accurate, the "cream of the crop" of this party who, through numerous schemes, suck money from Russia and from taxpayers' money). He was widely regarded as an annoyance to Putin and his friends (all of whom became billionaires).
Navalny did nothing wrong and is a real patriot of the country, but unfortunately the Law doesn't work in Russia because Putin directly or indirectly controls it all.
This trial is a theater and was only done to deprive Navalny of any future political activities (several weeks ago the very same party passed a law that prohibits convicted people from being elected anywhere). The judge built this trial on top of the words (with no proof) of an executive of this company (who obviously have been forced to slander Navalny and who said during the trial that "I don't remember the exact details, but Navalny is guilty". It became so funny that the prosection had to read to this executive what he has to say during the trial). The judge barred more than 10 witnesses of the defense, and basically didn't allow the defense to present any evidence that implies Navalny's innocence (independent audit reports, for example). Judges who find guilty otherwise innocent opposition members get awarded with appartments and get another luxurious incentives.
It wasn't a trial, it was a circus. But hey, even circuses have better and more professional clowns.
So stealing 10.000 cubic meters of wood from organization "Kirovles" is now "political case", "fighting against the system" and "did nothing"? Ok I'll keep this in mind.
I have been reading HN for a long time. But yes i wanted to leave a comment because we all know how media (especially US) is independent. Independent from truth, morale and objectivism of course.
