Putin 'uses Soviet scare tactics' to silence critics of new Russia

The Daily Telegraph ^ | 29/01/2006 | Nick Holdsworth

[REactor]

Yevgeny Ikhlov does not look like a man who is easily frightened. As a long-time peace and human rights activist, he has frequently clashed in the courtroom with Russia's secret services, military and public prosecutors.

The FSB security service - the successor to the feared Soviet-era KGB - once tried to imprison him on trumped-up charges of taking funding from terrorist organisations after he attempted to broker a peace deal in Chechnya.

But now he is scared, and like other human rights activists in Russia, is bracing himself for a Kremlin crackdown unprecedented since Soviet times. It follows the exposure last week of four alleged British spies whom President Vladimir Putin's regime has accused of secretly funding and advising pro-democracy groups. (In fact, all the grants are publicly declared.)

Less than a week earlier, Mr Putin had quietly signed into law controversial new measures forcing all non-government organisations (NGOs) in Russia to report their activities and funding sources to Kremlin apparatchiks, who will have the power to shut down any deemed to be acting against state interests.

"Putin has started his frontal attack on the last remaining segment of society not subordinate to him," warned Mr Ikhlov. "Politics is subordinate to Putin; the mass media and business are on their knees. We are the last part of society that does not get any funding from the state. There is a battle coming to a head and they have already put zelyonka on our foreheads."

By zelyonka he means a near-indelible green antiseptic - the Russian equivalent of TCP - most commonly seen on schoolchildren who have bashed their knees. To dissidents, however, it has a more sinister association - Soviet-era doctors daubed it on the foreheads of prisoners facing firing squads in order to improve the marksmen's aim.

Mr Ikhlov, 48, is head of information and analysis at the Moscow-based group Za Prava Cheloveka (For Human Rights), which occupies a cluttered warren of rooms in a quiet side street, 10 minutes' walk from the Kremlin.

Sitting in a draughty basement room, the trained surveyor and former journalist smiles ruefully in memory of the early 1990s, when it seemed that endemic fear in Russia had been abolished along with the Gulag and the KGB.

That atmosphere of confidence and freedom - already partially eroded in recent years - was swept away at a stroke last week, when President Putin used televised allegations of British diplomats spying in Moscow and funding human rights groups as a pretext to justify the draconian new laws on NGOs.

Suddenly hundreds of Russian and foreign NGOs now fear the ground is slipping from beneath them.

Mr Ikhlov's group, formed in 1998, has brought numerous cases against the Russian secret services and government ministries. Its successes have included reversing an FSB decision to reintroduce Soviet-style anonymous denunciations and scrapping an anti-Semitic school textbook.

In the past, Mr Ikhlov said, officialdom had to listen to them, if grudgingly. But he added: "Now every chinovnik (official) has been made to understand that we are somehow connected to spies. It completely robs us of our moral authority."

Pausing to look out at passing pedestrians trudging through a thick afternoon snowfall, Yevgeny said an odd incident last autumn had now begun to make sense.

Members of the group said they were being followed. Later they became aware that various men were filming their comings and goings. The men ran off when challenged and none of the group was ever sure what it was all about.

Mr Ikhlov now views these brushes as a precursor - "attempts to scare you but not really to do any worse". He and his colleagues are prepared to return to secret kitchen meetings - just like the Soviet dissidents of old.

[starfish923]

Yevgeny Ikhlov does not look like a man who is easily frightened. As a long-time peace and human rights activist

Sorry, but "peace" activists have their own agendas, which are sometimes counterproductive to national security. Even Russia, with its commie past, is entitled to have some national security.
Our own "peace" activists would have made our military flower-sniffing, hand-holding, rainbow-chasing fools....if they hadn't disbanded our military entirely.

Also, activists, of whatever ilk, often use methods that are just as bad as those they would accuse. Often, they are also just as violent, ESPECIALLY the "peace" activists.

The "human rights" advocates are also FAMOUS for pointing out all the errors made by all governments everywhere, yet that is all they do. When THEY join the Peace Core, Feed The Poor, Catholic Charities, or whatever, I will start listening to them. I also see too many movies, documentaries and books attached to them and $mell only dollar$ from them.
They are, all too often (but not always), just as bad as the lawyer-job "non-profit" (That's a lie.) organizations, which, incidentally spend 95% of their time FUND-RAISING. That would be hitting up EVERY/ANYone for big bucks to pay THEIR salaries @ $100,000.+ and the salaries of all their "administrative assistants," A.K.A. secretaries (who do all the work), @ $30,000.

Activists, imho, are fanatics. I don't trust fanatics. Seen too many of them these past 45 years to trust any of'em them very much...even Russian ones.

[x5452]

Let me think of another couple 'human rights activists' who tried to broker a peace deal with terrorist in the midst of a war.

Jane Fonda.

John Kerry.

[REactor]

In USA human rights may be taken for granted. Not so in Russia. And even less in countries like China, Cuba, Belarus. Human rights activists are doing a great job in such places. That's why they're unanimously hated there.

[REactor]

Hated by governments of course.

[RusIvan]

Not so in Russia. And even less in countries like China, Cuba, Belarus. Human rights activists are doing a great job in such places. ==

Problem is that they defend the rights of criminals and terrorists. So they absolutely discredited themselves before people.
That is why anyone put in pathenthesis "Human rights activists".

[x5452]

The sort of folks Reactor supports:


In March 1971, Fonda traveled to Paris to meet with National Liberation Front (NLF) foreign minister Madam Nguyen Thi Binh. According to a transcript that was translated into Vietnamese and back to English, Fonda told Binh at one point: "Many of us have seen evidence proving the Nixon administration has escalated the war, causing death and destruction, perhaps as serious as the bombing of Hiroshima." Afterwards, Fonda traveled to London, where she again came under fire for making a speech that discussed the use of torture by US troops in Vietnam. Her financial support to VVAW at this time was apparently not significant, as the organization ran out of money within a month, and one of its prominent leaders, John Kerry, was called upon to raise the necessary funds. (WIKI)

[Hill of Tara]

"Putin 'uses Soviet scare tactics' to silence critics of new Russia"

Oh please. Where do these conspriacy theories come from?

[Hill of Tara]

REactor is at it again ping!

Make sure you bring your tin-foil hat, there are conspiracy theories on this thread.

[Hill of Tara]

"This sort of folks reactor supports" and he supports this sort too...

[Lion in Winter]

Absolutely the truth!!!

soros thought he could use the NGOs to weasel in on Russian Oil and gas... well, guess he was found out and they are throwing his puppets out of the country!!

Wish the USA could toss soros and his pals to a pack of rabid WOLVES!!

[Thunder90]

Hmmm, another thing in the list of Putin's "Faults"

[Thunder90]

George Soros and Vladimir putin are friends behind the scenes.

[Lion in Winter]

BS

[Thunder90]

They both hate America, and Soros is believed to have been a former KGB agent. What's stopping him from being one now?

[x5452]

Yea, and Nancy Pelosi and george Bush have a secret affair.

[GarySpFc]

In USA human rights may be taken for granted. Not so in Russia. And even less in countries like China, Cuba, Belarus. Human rights activists are doing a great job in such places. That's why they're unanimously hated there.

Typical BS from you. Stellar and yourself were two of the biggest fans of the Chechens against the evil Russians. Both of you mocked me time after time when I said military intelligence said the Chechens were linked to and being lead by al-Qaeda. Now that is out in the open, and the is being reported in the news. You in essence supported al-Qaeda. Have you no shame?

[GarySpFc]

Oh yes, you're another one of the Chechen supporters.

[Thunder90]

No I'm not... I just don't trust "former" KGB agents.

[GarySpFc]

My posts regarding Russia only started AFTER I noticed your group defending the Chechens to the extreme. Over and over I told them the group was linked to and lead by al-Qaeda, but they denied it, and mocked me. Now that is out in the media and they are keeping quiet. Effectively they were supporting al-Qaeda.