Slashdot Mirror
The Kremlin Tightens Its Grip on the Internet
reporter writes "According to a report just published by "The Washington Post", the percentage of Russian adults having access to the Internet has risen from 8% in 2002 to 25% in 2007. This growth has attracted the attention of the Kremlin. Its allies are creating pro-Kremlin web sites and are purchasing web sites known for high-quality independent journalism. Pro-Kremlin bloggers have used their skills to bury news about anti-Kremlin demonstrations: at Russian news portals, web links to news about pro-Kremlin rallies consistently rank higher than web links to news about anti-Kremlin demonstrations.
The most disturbing development is that the Kremlin intends to develop a Russian Internet which is separate from the global Internet. Russian officials are studying the techniques that the Chinese use to censor the Internet."
You could very well replace the name "Russia" in the article with "United States" and I don't think it would surprise most here. I guess the pro-kremlin bloggers would then be Fox News?
A couple of things.
Russia is not so simple. First, Putin is enormously popular in Russia. He has put food in the belly of the Russian people, their standards of living are higher, and so on. In the mind of the average Russian, over there, someone supporting the likes of a pure democracy movement are the crooks and cronies from the Yeltsin era. Those crooks and cronies, in turn, are the very former communist leaders that they rebelled against to begin with!
Secondly, yes, there is Fox News and they tend to feature columnists that are sympathetic to the right wing of American politics. Guess what, that's half the country dude. The only reason Republicans are in trouble now, well, there are a lot, is because of the skyrocketing cost of energy and the growing realization that the Republicans in Washington aren't so Republican after all. If you think the likes of Hannity give Bush a blank check, you'd be dead wrong. Hannity -routinely- condemns Bush on immigration and was one of the key players to stop the Bush immigration reform bill dead in its tracks. Similarly, just wait until Bush flip flops on the ridiculous law of the sea treaty or tries to enact some sort of a carbon tax. He'd be dead meat.
Finally, the key difference between the USA and other places around the world that the left is so fond of comparing us too, is that, the left wing is allowed to spout its own opinions. If MoveOn was in Russia or China, they most certainly not exist. But then, neither would the NRA.
This is my sig.
The "Washington Post" recently published a chilling story about "police psychiatry" in Russia. Powerful thugs in the government (including the police) and in commercial businesses bribe judges and doctors to declare that a mentally healthy person is mentally incompetent. Then, the "justice" (in a very loose sense of the word) system will imprison the victim in a mental institution. There, the doctors proceed to "treat" the victim with beatings and injections of psychotic substances.
The article by the "Washington Post" mentions that Larissa Arap, a human-rights activist, was one such victim. She had written a damning article about the horrible state of psychiatric wards in Russia. In response, psychiatrists and judges -- under orders from the Kremlin -- imprisoned her in a psychiatric ward. She was subjected to 6 weeks of beatings and injections with an unknown psychotic substance. After numerous letters pleading for her life from Gary Kasparov and other human-rights activits, the Kremlin finally released her.
What is most disturbing about police psychiatry is that it is practiced not only by the Kremlin. This "tool" is also used by ordinary Russians who want to rid themselves of people whom they dislike.
Slashdot should create a new topic category for Russia. It deserves its own topic category for story submissions; the horrors in today's Russia should be an active topic of discussion (condemnation?) for any Westerner who has an iota of compassion. This article by the "Washington Post" should scare any Westerner.