Anna Politkovskaya's birthday. The police chasing activists and media.

Anna Stepanovna at the airport in 2003.


Today Anna Politkovskaya would have had her 49th anniversary.

And what is going on in Russia at this very moment? The police is raiding the office of Novaya Gazeta in Nizhny Novgorod. The editor-in-chief, Zahar Prilepin, is in agony. Their computers are being confiscated. (Prilepin visited us last July, at the Civic Forum 2007 conference, hence the link.)

Yesterday the same kind of demonstration of police forces was carried out at the office of the Nizhny Novgorod Foundation to Promote Tolerance, the successor to the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society (RCFS). They lost their computers, too. I wonder what kinds of accusations the diligent prosecutor's office will come up with.

This new wave of threats and confrontation, orchestrated by the over-active police and probably FSB, too, is a disgrace. Ugly. Pathetic.

***

You thought Russia is partly in Europe? No, it's vice versa. Now I understand what the Kremlin has been getting at.



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EDIT: The office of the Nizhny Novgorod Human Rights Alliance is being raided now. According to the locals, the police want to "check out the administrative, financial, entrepreneurial and business activities" of the non-governmental organisation.

В настоящее время в офисе Нижегородского правозащитного союза (руководитель Сергей Шимоволос) ГУВД проводит проверку лицензионного оборудования на основании постановления о проведении финансовой, предпринимательской, хозяйственной и торговой деятельности по типу уже проведенных в офисах Фонда в поддержку толерантности и Новой газеты. Сотрудники организации предоставили документы, свидетельствующие, что на балансе организации нет компьютеров. Однако, сотрудники ГУВД угрожают все равно изъять компьютеры на основании нового постановления. Сотрудники НКО сообщают, что это уже четвертая проверка организации за неделю.