Ordinary Russians feel Putin’s vicious dissent crackdown as he seeks another 6-year term: ‘Should not happen’
Ordinary Russians are getting caught up in President Vladimir Putin’s sweeping crackdown on dissent.
In a widespread clampdown human rights advocates are comparing to Soviet-era repression, an elderly radio enthusiast and an office worker joined the ranks of opposition political leaders and independent journalists locked up for questioning or opposing the Kremlin’s actions, according to a report.
The suppression efforts, in a nation that tolerated some dissent until recent years, are all but certain to continue as Russian President Vladimir Putin is poised to extend his 24-year reign another six years in this month’s election.
Among the unexpected political prisoners is 63-year-old Vladimir Rumyantsev.
A former wood-processing plant employee, Rumyantsev set up a radio frequency to self-broadcast around his home audiobooks and radio plays, in addition to YouTube videos and podcasts by journalists who criticized the Kremlin and its invasion of Ukraine.
The radio hobbyist eventually caught the attention of Russian authorities via his social media posts, and officials later discovered his radio broadcasts.
He was convicted in December 2022 for “spreading knowingly false information” about the Russian army and is now serving three years in a penal colony roughly 125 miles north of his home city of Vologda, which itself is about 300 miles north of Moscow.
Rumyantsev has rejected the charges and insists it is his constitutional right to collect and disseminate information freely, his lawyer, Sergei Tikhonov, said, explaining he didn’t aim to reach a radio audience.
According to human rights monitor OVD-Info, at least 1,143 people are now jailed on politically motivated charges, with more than 400 others dealt other punishments and nearly 300 more under investigation.
Last month, over 400 people were detained for paying tribute to the Russian opposition leader and fierce Putin critic Alexei Navalny, who died suddenly in a remote Arctic penal colony, the group reported.
Not all of Russia’s newfound political prisoners who have criticized Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine have been thrown into the clink.
St. Petersburg resident Viktoria Petrova was sentenced to involuntary treatment in a psychiatric facility in December over a single post on the Russian social media platform VK that slammed Moscow for its war with Ukraine.
Petrova, who was arrested in May 2022 and locked up in pretrial detention, underwent a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation after her fellow inmates claimed she continued her “antiwar propaganda.”
Her lawyer, Anastasia Pilipenko, argued that her client’s words had been misinterpreted, but Petrova was committed to the psychiatric facility for six months.
Pilipenko warned the doctors could keep Petrova in the psychiatric facility for as long as they desire, even extend her stay indefinitely.
Petrova’s lawyer said her client had been abused by the facility’s staff in November, including enduring a forced strip search by male workers and being forcefully injected with medication that prevented her from being able to speak for two days.
“This should not happen to ‘political [prisoners],’ criminals, mentally ill people, healthy people — anyone,” Pilipenko wrote on Telegram.
With Post wires.
