Justice in our country can be remarkably humane in places.
For example, the deputy chairman of VEB (Vnesheconombank, a state development bank), who was accused of embezzling $14 million, was released on bail immediately after his arrest, and yesterday the charges were dropped altogether.
Quite right too—why terrorize a businessman?
And it hardly even matters that these efficient managers were stealing money specifically from the water utility system, and that this same Ballo, by the way, is directly connected to the Neberdzhaevskoye Reservoir, now known across the country.
Of course he should be released.
Yesterday they also acted very humanely toward United Russia member Alexander Timofeyev, head of the Verkhneuslonsky District of Tatarstan. He was fined 300 million rubles (about $9.5 million at the time) for taking a bribe. He refused to pay, and therefore should have been imprisoned, but that did not happen. His health turned out to be too poor. Why jail a man, even if a court has ordered it? We should be kinder.
Irek Murtazin wrote well about this act of humanism.
But there is no mercy at all for the truly dangerous criminals.
As we know, the main villains and enemies of the state right now are the defendants in the "May 6 case" (the criminal case over the Bolotnaya Square protest of May 6, 2012). After all, one OMON officer (riot police) got hit in the eye there, and 15 others had their feet stomped on in the crowd with particular cynicism.
170 Investigative Committee investigators pulled out their white thread and are sewing the case together with all their might have been thrown at the crime of the century.
The current register of these "criminals" can be viewed here.
Aroundup of Gazeta.ru news coverage of the case can be read here.
Today the court once again considered pretrial restrictions for Denis Lutskevich, Artyom Savyolov, Vladimir Akimenkov, Oleg Arkhipenkov, and Alexander Kamensky.
Four were kept in custody; all the arrests were ruled lawful.
Well of course—they are far more dangerous to society than Ballo from VEB or Timofeyev from United Russia.
Of course travel agency employee Arkhipenkov has more ability to pressure witnesses and bribe investigators than a United Russia member, former district head, and state banker who stole $14 million.
And of course it is Savyolov who cannot be released under a travel restriction or house arrest, because he might flee the investigation on his private jet. He flies on it all the time.
The prisoners in the "May 6 case" are genuine political prisoners. They were arrested completely at random and are being unjustly held in custody. We must support them.
In any way possible. Morally. Spiritually. Politically. Organizationally. Financially.
If you can, come support them at the court hearing. If you cannot, send a little money for their defense.
At the moment, several human rights organizations are helping those detained in the "Bolotnaya case" over the so-called mass riots, including the already well-known and excellent "Agora" (here is their website) and the new volunteer project RosUznik.
Together they represent six detainees: two—Andrei Barabanov and Artyom Savelov—are represented by Agora; four—Sasha Dukhanina, Stepan Zimin, Fyodor Bakhov, and Mikhail Kosenko—by RosUznik.
RosUznik, incidentally, was something we came up with in cell No. 5 of a special detention center, where 16 of the 18 inmates were "political," detained on December 5, 2011.
The project is coordinated by one of those detainees, Sergei Vlasov
He was deeply affected by being arrested without grounds right outside McDonald's, and as you can see, he decided to devote a great deal of time to volunteer work. RosUznik works by collecting voluntary donations from citizens to provide legal assistance to detained civic activists at political demonstrations. Two wallets have been opened (Yandex wallet 410011434636201 and Qiwi wallet 9175905631), and the funds from them are used exclusively to pay for lawyers' services and for nothing else. A third Yandex wallet (410011368390128) has been opened to cover the project's current expenses. For now, RosUznik operates in two cities: Moscow (headquarters phone: 8-917-590-56-31) and St. Petersburg (headquarters phone: 8-964-339-89-33). RosUznik's news archive and the current state of affairs can be viewed on the website. The main online source of information is RosUznik's Twitter—follow it. VKontakte Facebook I donate money to RosUznik, and I hope you will too. The authorities will extend humanism and support to all sorts of bribe-taking United Russia officials and embezzling state bankers, but ordinary people have no one except us.