In Russia, dissent is now ‘treason’

Oct 18 2022 The Washington Post

Vladimir Kara-Murza from prison: In Putin’s Russia, dissent is now ‘treason’

Charges in the indictment for Vladimir Kara-Murza:

-“spreading deliberately false information about the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation” (publicly denouncing Vladimir Putin’s war crimes in Ukraine)

-“carrying out the activities of an undesirable organization” (for organizing a conference in support of Russian political prisoners)

-“High treason” for three counts:

-address to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly about the illegitimacy of Putin’s term-limit waiver;
-speech at the Norwegian Helsinki Committee award ceremony for Russian historian and political prisoner Yuri Dmitriev discussing repression in Putin’s Russia;
-testimony before the U.S. Congress’s Helsinki Commission on the pervasive media censorship imposed by Putin to hide the war crimes his forces are committing in Ukraine.

According to the indictment, the speeches
-“threatened the security and constitutional order of the Russian Federation,”
-“damaged the international reputation of the Russian Federation,” and
-gave Russia an “image as an aggressor state in the eyes of the international community.”

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“All of this has happened before, and we know how it will end. Aggressive wars launched by Russian and Soviet rulers for domestic political purposes […] ended up backfiring badly on their masterminds, who managed to turn both their own people and the world against them.”

Vasily Klyuchevsky: “…history doesn’t teach anyone anything — it only punishes for lessons not learnt.”