Cairenn
Senior Member.
You don't read a lot about Russia, do you? To compare Putin to either Pres Bush or Pres Obama is silly, to say the least. I disliked Pres Bush and to be honest, his overreaching for power worried me. But a new election was held and he retired from office.
http://www.thejournal.ie/putin-russia-opponent-prison-998133-Jul2013/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Khodorkovsky
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...oot-state-Last-words-Moscow-lawyer-death-scre
Many have spent months in cells awaiting trial and face long jail terms for crowd violence.
With his streetwise rhetoric and charisma, Navalny emerged as the most effective of the opposition leaders who led the unprecedented protests against Putin. ...
http://www.thejournal.ie/putin-russia-opponent-prison-998133-Jul2013/
Mikhail Borisovich Khodorkovsky (Russian: Михаи́л Бори́сович Ходорко́вский, IPA: [mʲɪxɐˈil xədɐˈrkofskʲɪj]; born 26 June 1963) is a former Russian oligarch[1] and businessman. In 2004, Khodorkovsky was the wealthiest man in Russia and one of the richest people in the world, ranked 16th on Forbes list of billionaires. ...
There is on-going debate about whether the trials and sentencing were politically motivated.[2][3] The trial process has received criticism from abroad for its lack of due process. Khodorkovsky has lodged several applications to the European Court of Human Rights, seeking redress for alleged violations by Russia of his human rights. In response to his first application, which concerned events from 2003 to 2005, the court found that several violations were committed by the Russian authorities in their treatment of Khodorkovsky.[4] In particular, the court ruled that Khodorkovsky's arrest was "unlawful as it had been made with a purpose different from the one expressed."[5] Despite these findings, the court ultimately ruled that the trial was not politically motivated,[6][7][8] but rather "that the charges against him were grounded in 'reasonable suspicion'".[7]
He is considered to be a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International. ...
February, 2003, at a televised meeting at the Kremlin, Khodorkovsky argued with Putin about corruption. He implied that major government officials were accepting millions in bribes. Putin privately told Lord John Browne, the former head of BP, "I have eaten more dirt than I need to from that man."[14]
In early 2012, prior to the Russian presidential election, writer and activist Masha Gessen wrote that Khodorkovsky and Putin had both underestimated each other. "During his eight years in confinement, Khodorkovsky has become Russia’s most trusted public figure and Putin’s biggest political liability. As long as Putin rules Russia and Khodorkovsky continues to act like Khodorkovsky, Khodorkovsky will remain in prison—and Putin will remain terrified of him.
Judicial controversy
On 14 February 2011, Natalya Vasilyeva, an assistant to the judge who convicted Khodorkovsky, Viktor Danilkin, said that the judge did not write the verdict, and had read it against his will.[20] Essentially, Natalya Vasilyeva said the judge's verdict was "brought from the Moscow City Court".[30] In her statement she also noted that "everyone in the judicial community understands perfectly that this is a rigged case, a fixed trial".[30] On 24 February Vasilyeva underwent a polygraph test, which indicated that she likely believes that Danilkin acted under pressure.[31] Judge Danilkin responded that "the assertion by Natalya Vasilyeva was nothing more than slander"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Khodorkovsky
Vasily Georgievich Aleksanyan (Russian: Васи́лий Гео́ргиевич Алексаня́н, Armenian: Վասիլի Ալեքսանյան; December 15, 1971[1] – October 2, 2011) was a Russian lawyer, businessman, and a former Executive Vice President of Yukos oil company. On 6 April 2006 he was arrested as a suspected accomplice to tax evasion and money laundering.[2] After a decision by European Court of Human Rights, he was released on a bond in January 12, 2009, dying from complications of AIDS on 2 October 2011.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...oot-state-Last-words-Moscow-lawyer-death-scre
Sergei was 36 and worked for a boutique American law firm called Firestone Duncan. He was a tall man with dark hair and a soft handshake who could do ten things in the time it took others to do one. He was a man of clarity and precision.
He said he knew the law and that he had done nothing wrong. Moreover, he said these police officers had stolen an enormous amount of money from his country and he wanted to make sure that they were brought to trial. So he stayed.
In fact, Sergei’s belief in justice was so strong that he testified against the police officers, judges, and criminals involved in the $230 million theft – a prospect most Russians would regard with terror.
Then, one month after his testimony, on November 24, 2008, the Russian establishment made its response. Two police officers arrested Sergei in front of his wife and two young children. It later emerged they had worked with one of the policemen against whom he had testified.
...
He was put in cells with neither heating nor window panes – in December in Moscow – so he nearly froze to death. He was put in cells with just a hole in the floor as a toilet and from where sewage would bubble up. The authorities wanted him to withdraw his testimony against the police officers and sign a false confession saying he had stolen the $230 million.
How do we know all this? Because Sergei wrote it down. In the 358 days he was in detention without trial, he kept a diary, passed out via his lawyers month by month, and filed 450 complaints detailing how he was being mistreated. As a result, his has become the most well-documented human rights abuse case that has come out of Russia in the past 25 years.
After six months, Sergei’s health began to deteriorate alarmingly. He lost 3st, developed serious stomach pains and was diagnosed as having pancreatitis and gallstones and needed an operation, which was scheduled for August 1, 2009.
One week before the operation, he was abruptly moved to Butyrka, a maximum-security prison considered to be one of the toughest in Russia. At Butyrka, which lacked any proper medical facilities, he suffered constant, agonising pain from his untreated pancreatitis and he was refused medical treatment.
His cellmate banged on the door for hours screaming for a doctor. When one finally arrived, he refused to do anything for Sergei, telling him he should have obtained medical treatment before his arrest. Sergei wrote 20 requests to be treated and every one was either ignored or rejected. The investigators came to him again and again saying all he had to do to end the situation was to sign a false confession
...
On November 13, Sergei was suffering agonising pain and appealed to prison authorities for medical help. The doctors did not see him until three days later.
On the night of November 16, Sergei was moved to a different prison with a hospital. But when he arrived, instead of sending him for treatment, they put him in an isolation cell, handcuffed him and allowed eight riot guards to beat him with rubber batons until he was dead.
This is a regime where a man’s life means nothing. Where officials and criminals are allowed to work together to steal from their own people and those who expose them are repressed and killed. We don’t know if President Putin was a direct beneficiary in the $230 million theft or had an involvement in Sergei’s torture and murder, but he is ultimately responsible for the cover-up that ensued.
You don’t have to dig very deep to find numerous other examples.
Just two weeks ago Leonid Razvozzhayev, a prominent member of the opposition, was kidnapped in Ukraine by Russian secret policemen, threatened that he and his family members would be killed and then forced into signing a false confession.
This follows the arrest and jailing for two years of two young mothers from the Pussy Riot punk group for releasing a 40-second song on YouTube criticising Putin.
According to a major Russian think-tank that advises the president, one out of every six businessmen has been subject to a criminal investigation. The lawlessness has reached epidemic proportions.
