Mass Arrests

MORE BATONS THAN BRAINS

By Stephen Wilson

 

The unprecedented en-mass arrests of over 10,000 protesters in Russia has often been arbitrary and absurd.

                           'To be prosecuted in a case like  means that one has already have lost it'. 

                            The Trial, by Franz Kafka.

 

 

Joseph K, a hard working conscientious banker, finds his privacy invaded by two guards who place him under arrest and proceed to plunder his room. The guards claim to represent an unknown court. They don't explain to him what the charges against him are. Joseph K claims his innocence and refuses to recognize the authority of the court which has summoned him. When he attempts to find out the location of the court he finds himself lost and bewildered by an intricate and complex labyrinth where paths go on forever and 'courts' are hidden in attics and claustrophobic corridors where the accused are made to queue up for hours and a case can continue for years. Nobody can give Joseph K sound advice about his case. He is ensnared in an endless maze which is designed to torture people. His uncle declares, 'To be prosecuted in a case like this is to have already lost it'. It sounds so familiar. Just replace attics and corridors with special buses and remote and distant detention centers which disorientate the accused and arbitrary arrests and you have Kafka.

 

One Russian Journalist told me that the court case where Navalny was sentenced to 2.8 years for violating the rules of probation was 'a circus'. It represents a travesty of justice! In recent days Moscow and other cities were shaken by the eruption of mass protest demonstrations against the unfair detention of Navalny on the 23rd and 31st of January. The crack down on demonstrators was harsher than on previous occasions and the scale of arrests unprecedented. According to OV INFO, 1400 people were arrested in Moscow on the 23rd of January and then on the 31st of January, 16,000 were arrested. So many people were detained that the police stations throughout Moscow could not cope and many were sent out to a special detention center where illegal migrants await deportation. The conditions of this detention center are deplorable. Lack of space for many to sleep, no access to a decent toilet as well as no access to water and food. This is literary torture. One 21-year-old girl had her head thrust into a plastic bag and was threatened with suffocation unless she confessed her password to access her mobile phone.

 

The authorities claim that the demonstrators were arrested for breaking the law and that they had paralyzed the city. Unless the Russian state enforces the rule of the law then a scenario of what happened in Ukraine could unfold. Without strict law enforcement, chaos and disorder can erupt. The problem with this claim is that unlike the Ukraine, the vast majority of protesters were peaceful and well ordered. In fact, it is the police overreaction which has created most of the disorder and chaos. Last Sunday they drove and dispersed most of the demonstrators from the city center to others parts of the city. Many people who had nothing to do with this demonstration were arrested. For example, a young school student who was on his way to a tutor for a music lesson was detained. A 23- year-old graduate, Emin found himself held and detained for ten days. He stated, "In general, I had not participated in this demonstration. I was simply walking to the city center and they didn't even hold me when I went past the demonstration. When I was going past the meeting, several policemen approached me, changed their mind and went for another person. But he did not suit them for some reason and they returned to grab me and put me on a bus. Nobody could have imagined this ... I did not do anything and this is the first time I have been put in this situation. I felt bad and was unable to sleep. A doctor called me just before I was released and found my blood pressure was 170." 

Denis Bondarenko had to visit the detention center in Sakharovo which is 80 km from Moscow to help his detained cousin. His cousin was working at the Lighthouse Children's Hospice near the city center and had just finished his late shift. He had simply stopped to ask which metro stations were closed. No helpful explanation was forthcoming. They simply arrested him. When his cousin attempted to explain to the court the situation they were not interested. Why do so many solitary walkers get arrested? It is easier for the police to detain a person than wade into a dense crowd who might prevent or resist arrest. A solitary person on his way to work or a tutor is a sitting duck for a policeman hoping to make a swift and easy arrest. The police are often assigned a quota of people they have to arrest. If someone happens to be in the wrong place, at the wrong time, it can be regarded as irrelevant. The main thing is not guilt or innocence but to fulfill your quota. Two girls on their way to a shift on MacDonalds had to plead loudly, 'We are on our way to work, not a demonstration".

 

Some people have been arrested for writing a joke or a message on a social network. I heard that a friend of my family, Lucy Shrein, a 24-year-old local politician and journalist is presently under house arrest for writing a post on Twitter supporting the call of protest. She has been charged with violating Covid 19 restrictions. Her boyfriend Roman Volobuev stated, "In Spring she will be judged for a post on Twitter".

One of the most passionate demonstrators, Marina Nazareva, an editor, told Second City Teachers, "We have to make a stand against corruption."