RUSSIA Moscow, “chain” accusations against new dissidents

Another setback for Vladimir Kara-Murza, in prison for having participated in a round table on the fate of political prisoners, organized at the Sakharov Center in December. As with Navalny, new devices are always being sought to arrest political opponents and bury them behind bars.

Moscow () – Opposition politician and journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza was arrested several weeks ago outside his home in Moscow for “suspicious behavior”. He is now charged with a new charge under article 284.1 of the Russian Penal Code, for “activities in an undesirable organization.” He is accused of having organized a round table at the Sakharov Center in Moscow on December 27, 2021, on the occasion of the Day of Remembrance of political repressions in the USSR. The purpose of the meeting in question was to support political prisoners in today’s Russia.

Kara-Murza allegedly organized the meeting thanks to funding from the Free Russia Foundation, an association branded as “undesirable.” It must be said that these types of meetings have been held for years thanks to Kara-Murza, Sergej Davidis and others, with the participation of activists, lawyers, journalists, relatives of political prisoners and many others interested in this issue. In the Sakharov Center, now closed by the authorities, “the most sensitive representatives of Russian society have always met, certainly not the wanted or undesirable foreigners,” as Vera Vasilieva, an activist who collaborated with Kara-Murza for years, recalls. .

From prison, the politician recalls the importance of closely monitoring the situation of political prisoners in Russia. As he wrote in a letter a few days ago, “the best defense is information spread internationally.” He was pleased when on June 21 the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe approved a resolution with a clear formulation of the problem, on which he had worked in previous years.

Following his arrest, Kara-Murza was also charged with fejk, that is, for the spread of false news about the special military operation in Ukraine – in relation to critical comments he had made during an online conference with an assembly of the state of Arizona, United States. As was the case with Navalny and many others, it is clear that the initial charges on which dissidents are arrested are generally pretexts, to which other more serious accusations are later added – “about the horns”, as they used to say in Stalin’s time – to extend the detention indefinitely.

Official statistics confirm that in Russian courts, absolute acquittals are less than 0.1%, a negative record internationally. “It doesn’t matter much why you end up in the dock,” Vasilieva comments bitterly, “they always find a ruse to bury you in a detention camp. However, Kara-Murza himself tries to instill hope from prison and claims : “My goal is that my work on behalf of political prisoners becomes completely useless, but only when not a single one remains in Russia. And I am convinced that that day is not so far away: the night turns darkest just before dawn.”