Student Crackdown

CRACK DOWN ON STUDENTS  

By Stephen Wilson

 

            

"I would not recommend you go on those unsanctioned demonstrations as police are checking everyone entering or leaving metro station exits. They have orders to arrest, detain and even beat up certain demonstrators. You could be detained and deported. I know of cases where protesters have been detained and tortured to get them to sign a confession. They have used electric shock methods. It is like 1937 again when we had the repression. The authorities are afraid of an Orange revolution and will do anything to stop it."

            

I appreciated the worried and warm warning. The Rector of Moscow State University of Humanities gave a less friendly warning. On the contrary, Alexsandr Bezborodav issued a dark threat to any member of staff or student who attended an unsanctioned demonstration. He declared that, "We think it is important to warn youth that unsanctioned things are unacceptable.... Students who have been found to have violated the law will be purged from the university {Expelled }. If there has been a serious violation of the law, the management will severely punish the students up to even purging them from the university." The public statement provoked an angry reaction from many members of staff and students.

            

As many as 100 teachers, students and other member of staff signed an Open Letter expressing their indignation and affront.

             

They responded to the Rector's threat in an "Open Letter" with the words, "Concentrate your attention on carrying out the aims of the university and not in punishing students for non-university activities ... According to Article 43 on the Law of Education of the Russian Federation discipline in an organisation of education exists to support and basically respect the human dignity of the students ... Physical or psychological violence in relations is not allowed. We consider that a university can't and must not take measures of a disciplinary response against those people found guilty of violations with university. " They eloquently argued that a person can't be put on trial for the same offence twice. To do so would be to violate a basic universal human right of {Non Bis in Idem }.

 

             

This is not the only threat made to students attending unsanctioned demonstrations. Some protesters have been threatened with military service, the loss of parental custody of children as well as imprisonment for 'organizing mass disorder ' which carries a penalty of up to 8 years imprisonment. Yegor Zhukov, a student of the Higher School of Economics already faces charges under the law 212 for causing mass disorder. His blog just proved too popular!

 

             

The recent wave of mass demonstrations  this July and August was provoked by the Electoral Commission's decision to disallow opposition candidates from standing. They claimed that some of the signatures of the 5000 required to stand were false or invented. Opposition candidates call this a blatant lie. The real reason lies with the authorities fear that the opposition will win seats. The authorities were taken aback by the unexpected mass scale of the protest where as many as 22,000 gathered at a demonstration on the 27th of July.

             

What might well have passed as a dull non-event, {local council elections} largely ignored, has now become a fundamental center stage issue. It is amazing what trouble one inept decision by the Electoral Commission can cause.

 

             

All summer candidates and their supporters were gathering signatures. It was hard work. I was asked again and again if I would offer my supportive signature. I had to explain I was a foreigner who could not. This stirred up curiosity and some would practice their English with me to break the monotony. They were working from 9 in the morning to 9 in the evening. On their placards they stated, "If you hate United Russia then support us ". After such back breaking work it must be frustrating to be informed that your candidate has been disqualified for false signatures. Having observed how they were working I can vouch that they were meticulous in insisting that those who signed provided the appropriate documents to confirm their identity.

 

             

The crack down on protesters of unsanctioned demonstrations borders between the hysterical and absurd. As many as between 1300 to 1500 were arrested on July 27th and then 1000 on the 3rd of August. The local police were unprepared and overwhelmed by the mass of detained people. They also thought things had gone over the top. Many of those arrested were not involved in the protests. A person who worked as a courier, a person going for a walk on his day off and even an employee of a firm who simply went out for a smoke. The whole city center was under a police cordon. Many of the OMON were physically beating up protesters and terrorizing people. One person was dragged away while holding on to his bike and another person running to the metro station was pinned down.

             

You Tube showed a young man being held by police while another one is beating his legs with a baton. Now the whole world has watched this ugly incident!

 

             

Such violence is unlikely to deter young protesters. It will rather anger them. The notion that those attending the demonstrations were aggressive and attacking policemen is absurd to anyone who observed events. It was the police who were violently assaulting and openly violating the law. Things are upside down here. Those who commit violence are free to do so, while those who peacefully protest are arrested. It reminds you of Dicken's novel 'A Tale of Two Cities' where the detained lawyer finds that those in authority; judges, the guard, act and look like criminals, while those in detention all seemed to have the aura of innocence.

 

             

Resorting to brutally beating up or scaring away protesters won't work. The young are a different generation from the previous. In succinct terms, they are fearless.

             

Elena Orlova, a professor from Saint Petersburg, told me, "Our present day school children are not afraid. If you want to make a distinction between my generation and the next, we kept silent. We could not speak loudly. But now pupils are not afraid to express an opinion ". Only last year, a pupil called Leonid Shaidurov founded the first Union of School Students attracting a lot of support. This is not 1937. Therefore, the old tried and tested tactics of repression will be found wanting.