| At this moment (July 27, 2004. 12:01 Moscow time) a group
of young activists from the YABLKO party is throwing balls with red paint
against a poster bearing the portrait of Yuri Andropov on the FSB building.
All the activists are wearing black T-shirts with the red inscription "Down
with the Big Brother!" above a blacked-out portrait picturing "a
person looking like Putin" (Ed. A notorious pun used by the advocates
of Public Prosecutor General Skuratov to reject the video evidence against
Skuratov on charges of corruption).
The activists held a banner entitled "Down with Police Autocracy!"
Yabloko's activists are also shouting slogans "Lubyanka should be
ruin d as well as the regime!", "Down with the Big Brother!"
and "Down with KGB power!"
During the action the activists throw leaflets with the following content:
"That's enough!
Down with Police Autocracy!
The end of July 1826. The leaders of the Decembrists' rebellion are executed
in St Petersburg. The Decembrists - patriots and citizens of Russia came
to the square together with their comrades opposing the police regime of
the absolute monarchy in Russia. They wanted to live in accordance with
the Constitution and the law, and the authorities sentenced them to death.
Little has changed since 1826. Alexander III, Stalin, Andropov - all these
leaders contributed significantly to a strengthening of the police dictatorship
in Russia.
With Vladimir Putin in power Russia resembles increasingly the caricature
totalitarian state described in George Orwell's "1984". Putin
has become the real Big Brother, successfully implementing the three main
slogans of Orwell's anti-utopia. In the modern Russian variant they may
be put as follows:
CHECHNYA: war is peace!
ARMY CONSCRIPTION: freedom is slavery!
ELIMINATION OF GRATIUTIOUS EDUCATION: ignorance is force!
The authorities are continuing the senseless bloody war in Chechnya, firing
up inter-ethnic hostilities and demoralizing the Russian army.
The authorities are ruining the system of gratuitous education in Russia.
They are driving students to the barracks.
They are selling our cultural heritage to preferred businessmen.
The authorities are eliminating the institutions of a civil society. They
are liquidating opposition parties. Tarpaulin boots are trampling freedom
of speech down into dirt.
The authorities are multiplying the police truncheons, hounding secret
services at those who disagree, fabricate political criminal cases.
It is about time we said "Enough is enough!"
We are ready to oppose the police system of Putin's totalitarian rule and
the power of corrupt bureaucrats with our civil position, our intention
to fight for our freedom and readiness to go on the streets.
We announce our intent to organise the acts of civil disobedience and exert
direct pressure on the authorities, our desire to launch a wide-ranging
public discussion on Russia's future and the intention to change the political
regime in the RF through any legal methods.
We are not afraid to confront the authorities. Our fathers granted us the
franchise and it will be very difficult to make us shut up."
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