A war for nullification (22.06.2020)
22 June 2020
Lev Ponomarev, chair of the national NGO For Human Rights and member of the Moscow Helsinki Group
Source: Moscow Helsinki Group [original source: Эхо Москвы]
Pavel Krisevich has been detained at the court where the verdict in the St. Petersburg ‘Network’ case was pronounced [‘Network’ is an organisation banned in the Russian Federation]. He put handcuffs on himself and chanted, “The FSB is the chief terrorist!”
When the verdict was announced, Viktor Filinkov and Yuly Boyarshinov were found guilty of taking part in the activity of a terrorist group. Filinkov and Boyarshinov were sentenced to seven and five and a half years in a prison colony, respectively.
After the verdict was announced, the police immediately began dispersing the people who had gathered near the court, and about 30 people were detained.
This verdict came after a wave of outrage against the verdict in the Network trial in Penza had swept the country. After hundreds of young people went in protest to the FSB building at Lubyanka Square.
Since then, the government has failed to draw the right conclusions.
By declaring war on hundreds of thousands of active young people in the country, the government continues its attack. And the ‘spiritual and moral values’ that Patrushev sings to us about aren’t fooling anyone. The banners of this war are ugly and shabby. ‘We have tortured, and we will torture’ — that’s what the FSB is telling Russians. A spiritual and moral continuity with the NKVD has been proclaimed, and judging by Patrushev’s active support for the Constitutional changes, the FSB’s power has firmly taken root in Russia.
It is the younger generation that determines a country’s future. It is the future that the government is fighting today — and the government has become completely chekist, paving the way for social and political catastrophe in Russia.
At 6pm today, people went to the FSB building on Lubyanka Square to express their outrage and take turns in single-person protests, which don’t require official approval and are permitted by law. It was the government that provoked these people, that angered them. At this moment, as I write these words, the detentions have begun.
The war to nullify the youth — the future of the country — continues.
Translated by Nina dePalma
