Wow. I’m reading the Russian government’s official position on my complaint against them at the ECHR, and just: wow.
The complaint was filed over the ruling of the Lyublinsky District Court and concerns my right to write about figures like Vladlen_I_feel_bitterness_Stepanov and their shady dealings. Let me remind you that Stepanov’s wife, while heading a division of the tax service, siphoned several billion rubles from the budget for certain mysterious people, and used her personal cut to buy luxury real estate around the world.
In fact, this was the first part of what later became the famous “Magnitsky case”.
As became clear much later, similar schemes were used to fill Putin’s Panama wallet.
So, the ECHR case (I am represented by AGORA and their lawyer Ramil Akhmetgaliyev) is not about the substance of the issue, but about freedom of speech, and the government’s position submitted to the court reflects Russia’s legal view of freedom of speech. This is exactly what Vedomosti is writing about today.
So, our state officially believes the following:
Simply put, people who write on social media and blogs have fewer rights when it comes to freedom of information than registered media outlets.
A pretty convenient position in a situation where even Russia’s independent media have started operating in “at 12:01 a.m. we open the envelope and publish Kiriyenko’s press release” mode.
Comparing a blogger and a media outlet is like comparing a person and a tram. It’s a strange metaphor; it’s hard to say what was going on in the heads of the people who used it, but that is exactly what they wrote.
By the way, notice the trick here. Inside the country, they try to equate all bloggers with media outlets (so they can hold them liable). But for an external audience, they defend the position that “a blogger is not a tram.”
(very important) “In the absence of a criminal case against the plaintiff, the dissemination of information linking him to alleged abuses cannot be justified, the Russian authorities insist.”
In other words, if there are no criminal cases against Serdyukov, the Rotenbergs, Putin, Shuvalov, and so on, then you have no right to disseminate information about their abuses.
It should be noted, in general, that the issue of freedom of speech has clearly infuriated both the Russian government and its representative at the ECHR. I have never before had to read such an insolent—and at times simply rude—response to the court’s questions. For example:
Well, this is hardly surprising. Control over the media and a ban on any criticism are the foundation of Putin’s regime. Promoting censorship and destroying independent outlets were among the very first things he began doing when he came to power.
In the beautiful Russia of the future, freedom of speech will become one of society’s highest values and a key principle of the state. Without freedom of speech for everyone, there will be no fight against corruption, no political competition, and no economic development.
Subscribe if you agree: