Fined for yellow and blue shoes: How Russian laws smother dissent
cross-posted from: feddit.org/post/1095217
Dissent is not tolerated in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
For years Kremlin critics have faced a host of laws which could be used against them, and since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine that toolbox of measures has swelled in size.
The laws target basic rights such as freedom of speech and freedom of assembly - even though they are enshrined in Russia’s constitution.
The repressive nature of the punishments, often disproportionate to the offence, harks back to the methods of the old Soviet Union.
According to Natalia Prilutskaya of Amnesty International, the Kremlin uses laws to “legitimise repression”, partly by exploiting the vague wording of some Russian laws.
“This vagueness allows law enforcement structures to qualify basically any activity as a forbidden activity, or at least it makes it easier,” Ms Prilutskaya says.
- Ilya Yashin is one of the most high-profile critics of the war to be convicted under this law. The former head of a Moscow disctrict council was given eight and half years in jail for a live stream on YouTube in which he urged an investigation into the murder of civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha.
- In April 2023, prominent opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza was sentenced to 25 years in jail on charges of treason and spreading “false information” about the Russian army.
- Russian-language tutor Raisa Boldova, 61, was handed a suspended one-year community service sentence for posting critical comments about attacks on civilians in Ukraine, including the bombing of the Mariupol maternity hospital.
- One man was fined for wearing blue-and-yellow shoes - seen as a violation of laws regulating political demonstrations.
- And a journalist from Vologda Region, Antonida Smolina, was visited by police after someone complained about photographs she had posted online showing her posing in a yellow coat against a blue sky.
