4 Apr 2012 | Index Index, minipost
A Turkish politician has been sentenced to 15 years in prison after delivering speeches in the run up to elections in June 2011. Serafettin Halis, former Deputy of the Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) was convicted of being part of an illegal organisation, and creating propaganda for an illegal organisation following seven speeches he delivered during the run up the the elections. Halis told local press that he is being prosecuted for speaking to his constituents, as the speeches were made in his capacity as an elected official.
2 Apr 2012 | Russia
The Federation Council of Russia has passed anti-extremism legislation which rights activists consider threatening to Kremlin’s public critics. It prohibits people who were charged with extremism to work with children in such fields as education, medical care, social security, sports and recreation.
According to lawmakers, the new legislation aims to protect children from radicalisation. But human rights activists and a number of trade union leaders have expressed their concerns over such law: together with drug and defamation legislation, anti-extremism laws in Russia are often used against Kremlin critics.
The term “extremism” is defined vaguely in Russian law, making it easy for judges to condemn innocent people. For example, if a person publicly criticises police for dispersal of peaceful protesters, he might then be charged with extremism for “incitement to social hatred” according to Russian law.
Another example of anti-extremism law misuse is seen through the prosecution of libraries staff and internet providers for allegedly promoting extremist literature. In practice, some libraries and providers do not have access to information from law enforcement authorities detailing which books are extremist. Examples of this were analysed in detail by SOVA Center for information and analysis, who described anti-extremist legislative measures in Russia as repressive.
Education union leader Andrey Demidov called the new legislation an “employment ban”, explaining that due to the vague definition of extremism and corrupted law enforcement and judicial systems, any teacher who openly criticises the government is likely to be charged on extremism and loose their job forever.
Elections in Russia are mostly held in schools, and most local election commission members are usually teachers. After allegedly fraudulent parliamentary elections, opposition activists appealed to teachers asking them not to participate in fraud. Many supported that request, which, together with high activity from election monitors, led to Vladimir Putin not winning presidential elections in March in Russia’s “two capitals,” Moscow and Saint-Petersburg.
7 Mar 2012 | Asia and Pacific, Index Index, minipost
Around 100 journalists were attacked by a large crowd in India yesterday, whilst covering local elections in northern state Uttar Pradesh. The journalists were forced to lock themselves in a school, which was being used as an election centre, after clashes broke out between supporters of the parties involved in the election. The crowd of approximately 4,000 turned on the journalists on the evening of the election, after the results had been announced. They were assaulted, and their equipment and vehicles were damaged by the crowd. The journalists were able to leave the school early on Wednesday morning.
7 Mar 2012 | Russia
The first protests after Putin’s victory were nothing like the merry mass demonstrations of the past months. An unprecedented mobilisation of special forces from Moscow cracked down on the 20,000 protesters at the end of the opposition demonstration in Pushkin square last night.
In spite of the first exit polls that were suggesting a second round might occur, Vladimir Putin won the presidential elections again last Sunday with an imposing result of 63.75 per cent of the vote. He is thus set to remain the President of Russia for another 6 years, and will be able to run for one more 6-year-long mandate after that.
Allegations of fraud persist. Following the parliamentary elections 3 months ago, which were widely perceived to be unfair, a great number of Russians got involved in the election monitoring process. Twitter feeds exploded with reports of election rigging from the early hours of Sunday morning, and did not stop until after the closure of polling stations. People were eager to document and record occurrences of “carousels”, where groups of people vote several times at different polling stations, usually travelling in small buses.
Masha, an observer in central Moscow, said: “the fraud is still happening, but the methods have somehow changed, and we are struggling to figure them out. Commission members are using erasable pens, which is not illegal, but certainly odd.”
Gesturing to a nearby voter, Masha added: “That girl, for instance, looks underage, but we are not allowed to check her documents. Up to 8% of people who voted at this polling station did not appear in the official lists, but voted using “otkrepitelnye”, documents allowing them to vote somewhere else“.
Mihail, observer in Altufevo, in the northern outskirts of the capital, was happy with the way the electoral process was going in the late morning hours. In the evening he called to say that severe violations occurred: “A great amount of voters who were not in the lists this morning have been included in them during the day. A carousel of some 100 people came in a neighbour polling station. We complained to the regional election commission, but all our complaints were rejected”.
On the positive side, the past few days have been a time of great active citizenship in Moscow. The choice of around 30,000 Russians to monitor on the fairness of the elections in person produced a big amount of political public discourse. Elections turned from a boring, barely noticed appointment which is better to be avoided, into a participatory process in which all the information available is rapidly assimilated and shared for further use.
But this did not happen everywhere, and did not involve everyone. Rural areas remained virtually untouched by the new wave of political interest that is evident in the big cities. For those who visited it in the past, the turn around in Moscow is a great surprise. Nicolas, a Swiss broadcaster told me: “Back in 2006, the only people who were talking about Russian politics were us, the foreigners. Today, you can hear people discussing Putin, Prokhorov and Navalny in most of the cafés”.
Those who thought that this political awakening would make a visible impact on the result of the elections were bitterly disappointed. The evening after the polls were counted, activists hit the streets once again, and nationalist groups responded with counter-actions. The biggest protest took place on Pushkin square, in the heart of Moscow. The numbers were much lower than those of the December demonstrations, and yet it felt as though the square could not hold any more people. Nearby streets were clogged with an impressive deployment of special corps, and the general atmosphere was quite gloomy, a totally different story from the joyful mood of the Garden Ring eight days before.
The protesters did not try to march towards the Kremlin, as it was previously announced. Instead, many of them stayed on the square once the official protest was over, provoking violent reactions from the police. Among the arrested — and soon released — were anti-corruption lawyer Aleksey Navalny, Left Front leader Sergei Udaltsov, Duma MP Ilya Ponomarev, Time magazine reporter Simon Shuster.
There are two things that are clear after the events of the past few days: protesters won’t stop their actions, until the whole of Russia is following them. What is less clear is Putin’s reaction to the discontent. Now that he cannot count on Medvedev’s image as a progressive liberal to balance his iron reputation, will he use good or bad manners to deal with those who question his legitimacy? The bright days of the protests may be over together with last night’s demonstration.
