Yesterday’s discussion on Echo of Moscow (a Russian radio station) on ymalbats’s program. The participants were Sergei Guriev, Viktor Bondarenko, and yours truly. http://www.echo.msk.ru/blog/video/825770-echo/ The discussion was fairly typical in the run-up to the Russian March, but important. If these questions keep coming up, they need to be explained as many times as necessary. Thanks to Echo for providing a platform for discussions like this. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to mention the most important thing: state policy aimed at depriving nationalists of even the slightest right to justice. Recently, in full view of everyone, activists from The Other Russia preceived long prison sentences for “organizing riots on Manezhnaya Square,” even though it is absolutely obvious to everyone that there were no organizers there at all — everything happened spontaneously. And if there were any organizers, they were the police officers who let Sviridov’s killers go free. The criminal case against those police officers, incidentally, has been dropped. The “trial” was laughable; the entire evidehttp://www.nr2.ru/moskow/353509.htmlнtiary basis was built on the testimony of OMON riot police officers, who kept contradicting themselves. They needed to lock someone up, so they found some “politicals” and jailed them. And now something completely unimaginable is happening. A criminal case has been opened against Demushkin. You can feel however you like about him, but let’s look at the facts: A statement on the Investigative Committee’s website “The investigative bodies of the Main Investigative Directorate for the city of Moscow have opened a criminal case against 32-year-old unemployed Moscow resident Dmitry Demushkin, suspected of committing a crime under paragraph ‘a,’ part 2, article 282 (incitement of hatred or enmity). According to investigators, on October 17, 2011, in an interview with one of the news agencies, Demushkin expressed ideas about recognizing the superiority of the Russian nation over others, called for unrest, and made threats of violence against persons who would obstruct the establishment of an ideology of Russian superiority. The necessary investigative actions are being carried out within the framework of the criminal case.” *2. Here is what Interfax reports about it 3. And now let’s read that supposedly sinister, hate-inciting interview with Demushkin from October 17. It’s a short interview — read it. I read it about ten times. Quickly and slowly, superficially and carefully. I found absolutely nothing in it that violated the law in any way or differed from what I said on Echo. I would strongly recommend that the Investigative Committee familiarize itself with the texts of public statements by officials of the Chechen Republic. There’s a whole open field there for fighting extremism and opening cases! Yes, Demushkin does say that even if permission is not granted, we will come out anyway. That is the correct thing to say. The law does not require any such permissions. We can assemble peacefully and without weapons as much as we like. The procedure is notification-based. This criminal case is fabricated in the purest possible way. The people who opened it are criminals. It is obvious that this is simply blackmail ahead of November 4. It is obvious that both the Investigative Committee and the prosecutor’s office are involved in this blackmail. It is obvious that these crooks are ready at any moment to turn that blackmail into repression. Only one thing is unclear: do the Kremlin crooks really not understand that such manipulations, and this blatant, naked mockery of justice visible to everyone, only bring closer the moment when their Swiss bank accounts will be frozen?