The Real Russia. Today.

Sentsov's weight loss, a march through Moscow, and Barnaul's protest

Tuesday, August 14, 2018

This day in history. On August 14, 2013, the messaging app Telegram was launched on iOS. The alpha version of Telegram for Android officially launched a couple of months later, on October 20, 2013.

• Russian human rights activist meets with Oleg Sentsov, who says he's lost 37 pounds on hunger strike
• The Mothers' March is coming to Moscow, plus a flashmob is headed for Yekaterinburg
• Barnaul protests against a police crackdown on edgy Internet memes
• Teenage anti-Putin activist Novokuznetsk is off the hook
• Tatarstan's Supreme Court sides with environmentalists against town officials
• Court in Novosibirsk un-bans satirical map mocking Russian racists and xenophobes
• Russian programmer writes script tracking listed ‘extremists,’ and gets a hello on Twitter from a wanted man
• ~~White House defunds U.S. cooperation with Russia under the Treaty on Open Skies~~
• Russian travel agency ‘Natalie Tours’ formally suspends future operations
• New poll shows narrow majority of Russians think nobody was right in August 1991 coup attempt
• Russia’s Finance Ministry drafts new environmental tax
• Russian e-payment card fraud is up sevenfold in 2018
• An organization scheming to take over Russia's funeral industry has ties to officialdom and neo-Nazis
• Police detain Orenburg Mayor Evgeny Arapov

24-37 pounds and chest pains 🍽️

On August 14, Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service allowed human rights activist Zoya Svetova to visitthe imprisoned Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, who has been on a hunger strike since May 17. He’s currently being held at a prison colony in the town of Labytnangi, in Russia’s Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, serving out a 20-year sentence for allegedly plotting terrorist attacks in Crimea. Sentsov recently told his cousin that his health is “catastrophically bad,” but Russian prison officials insist that his life is in no danger.

According to MBKh Media, Sentsov told Svetova that he’s lost 17 kilograms (more than 37 pounds) since starting his hunger strike, though prison doctors reportedly told her that he’s shed only 11 kilograms (about 24 pounds). Svetova says Sentsov’s condition is apparently unstable, he is experiencing chest pains, and physicians are encouraging him to end his hunger strike, warning that it could lead to organ failure.

Takin' it to the streets

✊ Countdown to the Mothers' March

Activists in Yekaterinburg are calling for a flashmobin support of Anna Pavlikova and Maria Dubovik, two of the teenagers arrested in March for allegedly belonging to the “Novoe Velichie” (New Greatness) extremist movement. Organizers are asking supporters to photograph themselves holding children’s toys and share the pictures on social media. The demonstration is scheduled for August 15, timed to coincide with an unpermitted “Mothers’ March” planned in Moscow, where activists will protest Pavlikova and Dubovik’s pretrial incarceration. Pavlikova’s lawyer warns that the march could hurt his client’s case, but her sister and mother are supporting the demonstration.

Pavlikova and Dubovik’s mothers previously published a video appeal to Vladimir Putin, demanding that he order their daughters’ release and punish the officers who “framed” them. The mothers also accuse the police of fabricating evidence against their children. “Do you really have no other enemies than my daughter?” Pavlikova’s mother asks in the video. According to the websites OVD-Info and Medizazona, police had at least one officer embedded undercover in the movement.

Since being jailed, Pavlikova and Dubovik have reportedly become seriously ill, leading Russian Human Rights Commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova and Presidential Human Rights Council Chairman Mikhail Fedotov to call for their release, though a court recently ignored these requests.

💻 Stop all the downloadin'

In late July, police announced criminal charges against two Barnaul Internet users, Maria Motuznaya and Daniil Markin, because of memes they shared online. The suspects accused two students at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration of “ratting them out,” but on August 14 the regional Investigative Committee chief denied these claims, saying that the students are merely witnesses in a much larger investigation.

On August 14, between 150 and 200 people in Barnaul picketed against prosecuting Internet users for “extremist memes.” Motuznaya and Markin both attended the rally. Lyudmila Suslova, a deputy in the Altai Krai Legislative Assembly, also protested. The rally had a permit from local officials and publicity thanks to the popular rapper Oxxxymiron.

“We can’t generalize here because every case is unique, and they either fall within the law or they don’t. Of course, we’re aware that there are still cases that can challenge common sense.” — Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov comments on the recent surge in criminal prosecutions for offensive and “extremist” Internet posts

In recent years (and especially in recent weeks), police officers have opened criminal cases against Russian Internet users, typically charging individuals with hate speech, extremism, offending religious views, or propagating Nazism. The vast majority of these criminal cases are filed against users of Vkontakte, which surrenders virtually all personal data, whenever requested by law enforcement, according to human rights activists. On August 6, Vkontakte’s parent company, Mail.ru, publicly condemned these prosecutions. Five days later, Vkontakte announced new options that will allow users greater privacy.

📣 Off the hook

A juvenile affairs commission has withdrawn charges against a 17-year-old in Novokuznetsk. Lev Gyammer was facing community service for helping to organize an anti-Putin protest on May 5, ahead of the president’s latest inauguration. According to the television network Dozhd, officials determined that Gyammer’s demonstration warranted no prosecution because it caused no injuries or property damage.

On May 5, 2018, activists spurred by Alexey Navalny staged anti-Putin rallies across the country. Police detained roughly 1,600 demonstrators, including an estimated 150 minors.

👩‍⚖️ Standing with the activists

Tatarstan's Supreme Court has upheld a decision by a lower court stating that Osinovo town officials broke the law by refusing to issue a permit to local activists who wished to protest against the construction of an incineration plant. In late March, environmentalist Igor Eliseyev submitted multiple rounds of paperwork to try to obtain a permit for a small rally against the proposed construction, only to be told by town officials that his demonstration would be illegal. Activists went ahead with the rally anyway, and police later charged three participants with violating the peace and using the Internet to incite the public to an unlawful assembly.

A victory for satire ⚖️

A regional court in Novosibirsk has overturneda January 2016 ruling that banned a satirical map of Russia’s “near abroad.” The authorities previously declared the map to be a work of illegal extremism because it identifies countries along Russia’s border with racist epithets. Created by the artist Alexey Kudelin (better known by his pseudonym, Vasya Lozhkin), the map actually lampoons racists and xenophobes, depicting their view of the world in hyperbole.

The painting currently belongs to the businessman Alexey Khodorkovsky. In October 2016, police interrogated a man living in St. Petersburg for posting a photograph of the painting on his Vkontakte page.

Monitoring the monitors 🔍

Ivan Shukshin, a Russian web-programmer based in Gelendzhik, wrote a script that registers changes to the Federal Financial Monitoring Agency’s list of “extremists and terrorists.” Shukshin’s script started working on August 7, and within two days it had uncovered 45 new additions to Rosfinmonitoring’s list. On Twitter, one of the newly listed “extremists” — a man on Russia’s federal wanted list — answered Shukshin. Rosfinmonitoring lists the names of 8,500 people, roughly 7,000 of whom are identified as “terrorists.” Rosfinmonitoring’s website only shows the last 15 people who were unlisted from the “extremist” registry. In fact, far more people have come and gone.

• Read the whole story: “Russian programmer writes script tracking listed ‘extremists,’ and gets a hello on Twitter from a wanted man”

The unfriendly skies ✈️

~~By signing the~~ ~~fiscal year 2019~~ ~~National Defense Authorization Act~~~~, Donald Trump agreed to~~ ~~defund U.S. cooperation with Russia under the Treaty on Open Skies~~~~. The agreement, which entered force in 2002, has 34 party states and allows unarmed aerial surveillance flights over participants’ countries. Under Section 1242 of the act, the U.S. federal government will suspend funding for cooperation with Moscow under this program, until the White House can present Congress with evidence that Russia is fulfilling its treaty terms.~~

~~Washington says~~ ~~Moscow has violated the agreement by exceeding the imagery limits~~ ~~set forth in the treaty. The United States also insists that its planes must be allowed access to the airspace over~~ ~~Kaliningrad, Chechnya, and Moscow~~~~, as well as “within 10 kilometers [6.2 miles] of its border with Georgia’s occupied territories of~~ ~~Abkhazia~~ ~~and~~ ~~South Ossetia~~~~.”~~

~~In September 2017,~~ ~~The Wall Street Journal~~ ~~first reported that U.S. officials were preparing new restrictions on Russian military flights over American territory, after Moscow imposed limits on U.S. flights over Kaliningrad, where Russia is believed to have deployed sophisticated weaponry.~~

Correction: The 2019 NDAA suspends upgrades to OC-135B Open Skies USAF observation aircraft and suspends Open Skies Consultative Commission work on infra-red or synthetic aperture radar sensors, while requiring some reports to Congress on the security and utility of the Open Skies Treaty, but it does not stop, suspend, or freeze the agreement. Meduza apologizes for the mistake.

Refunds, initiate! 🛃

The Russian travel agency “Natalie Tours” has suspended future operations, paving the way for its insurance company, Ingosstrakh, to start paying reimbursements to customers who bought canceled trips. On July 4, Natalie Tours announced that it was canceling all paid tours and suspending the sale of new travel packages. On August 14, the company’s president, Vladimir Vorobyov, announced that business will resume on October 1.

No historical consensus 🤷

New sociological research shows that a narrow majority of Russians today (53 percent) say they think nobody was right in the August 1991 coup d'état attempt by members of the Soviet government to take control of the country from Soviet President and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. According to a new poll by the Levada Center, 13 percent of respondents sided with the State Committee on the State of Emergency (GKChP), 10 percent supported Boris Yeltsin and company, and 25 percent found the question too difficult to answer.

The defeat of the coup has a similarly troubled legacy: just 6 percent of respondents said it was a victory for democratic revolution over the Communist Party. Thirty-eight percent said it was a tragedy with disastrous consequences for the country and the Soviet people, while 36 percent said the event was simply a struggle for power by the USSR’s ruling class.

The tax man cometh ♻️

Russia’s Finance Ministry has drafted amendments to the Federal Tax Code that would introduce a new environmental tax. Officials want the new tax to replace existing payments imposed on certain emissions. The new rates would apply to air pollution, wastewater discharge, and the storage and disposal of waste. Russia’s Finance Ministry argues that the current fees on emissions are insufficient, pointing out that federal environmental programs are financed by other budget revenues. The new tax would take effect on January 1, 2020.

Russian businesses have previously complainedabout the growing list “non-tax” and “quasi-tax” payments companies are required to make. These payments include environmental fees, recycling fees, and visitor’s fees.

Rising e-crime 📈

E-payment card fraud in Russia was up sevenfold in the first six months of the year, according to new figures released by the Attorney General’s Office. Leading the pack was the Stavropol Territory with 66 reported cases, followed by the Murmansk region (52), Tatarstan (37), and Moscow (34). In 2017, the nationwide number of reported crimes in information and telecommunications technologies rose 37 percent, from 65,949 to 90,587. (The most common crimes were illegally accessing computer information and spreading computer malware.)

Corruption

⚰️ Cornering a stiff market

Meduza has learned that the son of a top Russian federal official owns the “Verum” organization, which markets itself as a community to protect the rights of the deceased. Denis Loginov (whose father, Andrey, serves as the deputy head of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s cabinet) launched Verum in late 2016. The organization disseminates negative stories about funeral services, which it collects by paying Internet users for video footage of illegal burials and ceremonial practices.

Denis Loginov previously led the Moscow branch of the right-wing “Restrukt” movement, which was founded by the neo-Nazi Maxim Martsinkevich (better known by his moniker, “Tesak”). The movement was responsible for the so-called “Occupy Pedophile” sting operations, where activists posed as minors and lured potential “pedophiles” to meetings, where they were recorded on video against their will and robbed of their cash. Loginov was a witness in a subsequent criminal investigation that sent Martsinkevich to prison for five years.

Meduza special correspondent Ivan Golunov learned from Loginov’s friends and business acquaintances that Verum’s main goal is to corner Russia’s funeral market. The organization, however, claims that its revenue comes from providing legal consulting to people who encounter problems with organizing funerals for their loved ones. Golunov also learned that Loginov’s father, Andrey, lobbied for new legislation on burials in Russia that was drafted by the Construction Industry, Housing, and Utilities Sector Ministry.

👮 Another mayor in cuffs

On August 14, police detained Orenburg Mayor Evgeny Arapov, days after the arrest of Gennady Borisov, the deputy head of his urban development department. Borisov is charged with accepting 600,000 rubles ($9,000) from a local businessman for favoritism in the city’s construction industry. Mayor Arapov is also suspected of bribery.

Yours, Meduza