Posted by jonathanfryer on Monday, 12th November, 2012
Being a Liberal in Russia is a risky vocation, as putting
ones head above the parapet politically is an invitation
to harrassment, arrest, criminal proceedings and heafty fines
or imprisonment. High profile anti-establishment activists
such as Pussy Riot get lots of foreign media attention and
noises of sympathy from the outside world, of course, but
even in their case that did not stop two of their number being
sentenced to two years detention each in different gulags.
Alas, as the leader of Russias Liberal Party Yabloko, Sergei
Mitrokhin, detailed in a speech at Westminster this lunchtime,
the long arm of President Putins law is getting firmer.
He highlighted three aspects of particular concern regarding
the current political situation in Russia and the crackdown
against Liberal forces. First, there are the political reprisals,
which have seen key Yabloko activists charged often on false
evidence for demanding action against high-level corruption,
for example. Second, Sergei stressed the hardening of laws
and the suppression of civil rights under various amendments
to the legal and civil codes. One good (i.e. bad) example
is an amendment which will mean that Russian NGOs receiving
grants from international bodies must now register as foreign
agents.
And last but not least in the litany of adverse developments,
is what Sergei called the clericalisation of the state,
in other words the way that a very conservative form of Russian
Orthodoxy has now been melded into a state ideology which
is dangerously nationalistic, anti-Western and anti-Liberal.
Todays gathering, at Portcullis House, was sponsored by Simon
Hughes MP, Lord Alderdice and Liberal International.
Link: http://eng.yabloko.ru/
See also:
YABLOKO
Sister Parties
YABLOKO
and the International Liberal Family
Human
Rights
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