Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Chronicling Repression: How Russian Police Blacklist the Opposition

Via The Other Russia.

It comes as no surprise that political and civic activists in Russia experience harassment from police. Members of the opposition have long complained that they have been followed, detained as they travel by train, or even threatened by the militsiya. Yet the scope and systematic nature of such activities is just beginning to come to light.

As it turns out, the Russian police are creating databases used to the track the movements of law-abiding citizens. The project is overseen by a new department for countering extremism within the Russian police, but often targeted at individuals for no reason other than their political views or activism.

Journalist Irina Borogan documents these “black lists” in the third in a series of articles documenting the government campaign to battle extremism and strengthen control over the public. The series is a joint project between the Yezhednevny Zhurnal online newspaper and the Agentura.ru web portal, which specializes in investigating Russia’s intelligence agencies.

More here.

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