Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky.

Is Putin’s ‘roof ‘ going to keep out the hard rains of his falling popularity?

The Japan Times(Online)

By ROGER PULVERS
Special to The Japan Times
Putin’s in a pickle and Russia’s in the soup. At least that’s what many who write about the “Dear Leader” and his country seem to be saying. But is it so? Certainly there is disruption, the kind of disruption that sits just below the skin, breaks out into turmoil, then all but disappears from sight — temporarily.

A wand of disquiet and agitation waves above the land; and anyone cognizant of the chaos of participatory politics that swept through Russia in the decade leading up to the revolution of 1917 may shake either with dread (if you are a bureaucrat or politician) or joy (if you are one who believes in the progress of democracy). Certainly, the events of 1917 showed how that wand can be transformed into a scepter of bloodthirsty authority wielded against the people.

In recent years, renowned journalists such as Anna Politkovskaya and activist lawyer Sergei Magnitsky have been murdered. High-profile magnates like Mikhail Khodorkovsky and reformist businessmen like Alexei Kozlov were arrested on trumped-up charges and sent to penal colonies. Demonstrations of tens of thousands of disgruntled citizens are taking place on the streets of Russia’s cities. These may not be the harbingers of a Russian Spring, but the country’s opposition is no longer locked in ice.

Three members of the all-female Russian militant feminist punk-rock group Pussy Riot were taken into custody for two months for “disorderly conduct” while performing on the altar of Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior. They face a possible seven years in prison if convicted.

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