The Putin Principle

Ottawa - Article 31 of Russia's constitution guarantees freedom of assembly. In defence of their diminishing democratic rights and so as to protect this constitutional right of assembly, on the 31st of each month Russia's beleaguered opposition gathers to protest. Unfortunately, in Putin's Russia, notwithstanding constitutional guarantees, the democratic space has been shrinking. On August 31, peaceful protestors of Russia's democratic opposition were arrested. Vladimir Putin, commenting on the arrests of leaders of the democratic opposition, established a new tenant of Putinism; protesters have been warned by Putin that "You will be beaten on your skull with a truncheon. And that's that."


This statement was made in response to questions surrounding the arrest of activists carrying the Russian flag on August 31, a date symbolizing the right to free assembly in Article 31 of Russia's constitution. In the past several weeks opposition leaders such as 69-year-old Lev Ponomarev (a long-time human rights activist) and Mikhail Schneider (a leader in the newly formed democratic opposition movement Solidarity) have not only been arrested, they have been sentenced to prison using old Soviet-style laws which allow for prison terms for taking part "in unsanctioned meetings."

Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj commented on the imprisonment of Mr. Ponomarev and Mr. Schneider, as well as the arrest of Mr. Boris Nemtsov, leader of the democratic opposition and former Deputy Prime Minister of Russia (Mr. Nemstov was arrested the day after Wrzesnewskyj introduced Mr. Nemstov who was linked by Skype to the Black Ribbon Day conference at the University of Toronto's Munk Centre organized by the Central and Eastern European Council of Canada):

"Mr. Putin has not only diminished Russia's democratic space, he is instituting a new dictatorship. As he prepares to take over Russia's presidency in 2012, Putinism's tenants appear to be:

1) state/oligarch capitalism;
2) courts subsumed to the will of the executive branch of government;
3) electoral manipulation and abuse;
4) repeated use of police intimidation of human rights and democracy activists, and growing police corruption;
5) intimidation and killing of journalists;
6) state control and revision of history;
and
7) declining religious freedom while promoting State Russian Orthodoxy."......

Read more: http://maidan.org.ua/static/narnewslviv/1284730208.html

Moscow Tea Party (Moskovskoye Tchaepitiye).

Next Libertarian Moscow Tea Party will be in Moscow. Join us on Bolotnaya square, in September, 12, from 3 P.M.

Second Part of the Radical Party's General Council. General Motion in English

http://www.radicalparty.org/en/content/general-council-general-motion-0

Moscow Tea Party.

Join our group on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=135379116506009

Next Party - in September, 12.

2nd anniversary of Russian aggression against Georgia.

As I cannot to work under “my” scientific texts because of fucking terrible heat in Moscow (+35), these days I constantly read the downloaded book of Francis King – “The Secret Rituals of the O.T.O.”, published in 1973 in the U.S.A. and previously concerned the initiation Rites of Ordo Templi Orientis during its Thelemic period. At the present moment I’ve red only until the end of the Third Degree, but I’m already must to say, that this book is very interesting. Firstly, because of its beginning chapters about the O.T.O.’s history. Secondly, because of demonstration of the strictly Masonic elements in the Initiation structure and Rites. And thirdly, because of my wishing to find out the similarities (and, maybe, visible contradictions) between the Rites of the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica and the O.T.O. itself.

Russia as fascistic and clerical state.

Church and state in Russia
Art under arrest
A blasphemy trial shows the limit of Russia’s cultural freedom
Jul 1st 2010

Avant-garde Samodurov under guard

A CONTEMPORARY work of art can provoke outrage disproportionate to its artistic merit. In Russia it can also herald a change in the course of history. In 1962 the then Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev famously denounced and banned an exhibition of avant-garde artists in Moscow, saying his grandson could paint better. This marked the end of the short post-Stalinist thaw and ushered in the period of “stagnation”. Khrushchev himself was deposed two years later.

Nearly 50 years on, Russian prosecutors are demanding a three-year jail sentence for the organisers of a contemporary-art exhibition in Moscow. The verdict, expected on July 12th, could have an impact far greater than the exhibition itself and determine the balance of power between ultranationalist religious radicals and secular pragmatists in Russia.

More:

http://www.economist.com/node/16490095?story_id=16490095