Russian Police Seize Kasparov

An anonymous reader writes "Russian police seized Garry Kasparov, the Russian chess champion, for staging a political rally against Vladimir Putin. IBM's Deep Blue computer was the first to beat a world champion when it defeated Kasparov, who is one of the strongest players in history." He's also been a giant critic of the Russian administration which is increasingly restricting free speech.

Comments

Re:gratuitous IBM inclusion

[tverbeek]

Adding that he's a "giant critic" of the Putin government is an improvement, but how about the fact that Kasparov is an actual candidate for president, hoping to be elected head of that government in March? This is akin to arresting Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.

The Kremlin Plays Brutal Chess

[reporter]

Unfortunately for Gary Kasparov, the Kremlin plays brutal chess.

According to a report recently issued by Reuters, the leading political candidate representing the liberal anti-Kremlin Yabloko party has been shot by an unknown assailant. The candidate is now in serious condition in a hospital. This attempted assassination caps a year-long effort, by the Kremlin, to rig the parliamentary election on December 2. Under orders from the Kremlin, banks have refused to accept donations from supporters for deposit in the accounts of opposition parties. Owners of assembly halls have canceled contracts allowing opposition politicians to stage rallies. The police have seized the newspapers of opposition parties in a draconian attempt to prevent them from spreading their message.

In early November, the election-monitoring arm of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) declined to send election observers to Russia to monitor the 2007 parliamentary election. This OSCE decision resulted from (1) the Kremlin's refusing to allow more than 70 OSCE observers to enter Russia and (2) the Kremlin's delaying the granting of visas to them. In 2003, the Kremlin had accepted 400 OSCE observers, but after the OSCE condemned the 2003 election for being unfair, many folks in the Kremlin vowed to stymie OSCE's efforts in future elections.

In a Russian City, Clues to Putin's Abiding Appeal

[Anonymous Coward]

Today's Washington Post has an interesting article which explains why the Russian people love Putin, or at least look the other way with respect to Putin's excesses.

As Bill Clinton would say: "It's the economy, stupid". From the article:

The lean, balding 35-year-old, who has spent his adult life working on the line at a glass factory in the suburbs of this city, now sits at a laden table with his wife and 13-year-old son. Behind him is a brand-new television beside a matching CD player, also new. His Lada car, bought recently with a bank loan, is parked outside the family's second-story walk-up apartment.

"I feel much safer now," said Ignatiyev, whose family recently took its first vacation abroad, a package tour to a Turkish resort. "I have a good job, not a prestigious job, but a good living." In just the past two years, his salary has more than doubled, to $700 a month, reflecting his factory's growing sales.

Re:Kasparov's allies...

[ducomputergeek]

Kasperov is a member of this organization:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Civil_Front

Which is part of a larger organization:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Other_Russia

This more a case of politics makes strange bed fellows. All those groups have one thing in common: opposition to the current government and the direction Russia is heading. Take that common cause away, and I doubt many of these groups would have much to do with each other.

So saying Kasperov is guilty by association in this context isn't exactly fair.

Re:In Soviet Russia

[M. Baranczak]

In Putin's Russia, they seize dissidents.
In Soviet Russia, they shoot dissidents.
Not quite there yet, guys. Where have you been? Putin's been killing dissidents for a long time. Ever heard of Anna Politkovskaya?

Re:In Soviet Russia

[TorKlingberg]

Really?

Re:In Soviet Russia

[Anonymous Coward]

In Putin's Russia, they seize dissidents. In Soviet Russia, they shoot dissidents. Not quite there yet, guys.

Tell that to Anna Politkovskaya.

Re:Perhaps that was meant as some joke

[aproposofwhat]

Guess what?

Followed your link, actually read further than the summary, and it turns out GP was right!

From the Wikipedia page that you linked:

Garry Kasparov was born Garri Weinstein [1] (Russian: ) in Baku, Azerbaijan SSR to an Armenian mother and a Jewish father. He first began the serious study of chess after he came across a chess problem set up by his parents and proposed a solution.[2] His father died when he was seven years old. At the age of twelve, he adopted his mother's Armenian surname, Kasparyan, modifying it to a more Russified version, Kasparov.

Re:"Stern but fair?"

[tverbeek]

Kasparov is "linked with" the NazBols only by them both being part of the same opposition coalition. It's little more than a classic example of "politics makes strange bedfellows".

Political parties - no matter how disgusting, crackpot, or offensive - are not banned in the U.S. I'm not aware of any Nazi Commie parties, but we have just plain Nazis and just plain Commies (and probably even a radical Islamist party) and they're perfectly legal.

Re:In Soviet Russia

[ErikInterlude]

Ever heard of Anna Politkovskaya?

I hadn't, so I looked it up. The Wikipedia article is here. It's an unfortunate story. It makes me recall an NPR segment where a reporter was mentioning that the journalistic freedoms and protections we have in the larger, more powerful countries don't exist in elsewhere. Because of this, journalists have a reasonable expectation of protection from harm, but elsewhere there is no real journalism because everyone gets killed. It's too bad Russia is going down that route.

Re:Mod GP "Funny"

[rednip]

You are correct, 'Funny' has no Karma attached to it, and as other moderations do, one's Karma could be affected. Due to that, those who which to participate on Slashdot as 'class clowns' would eventually fall into the karma pits below zero, and ignored by most, if they are only 'ha-ha funny' rather than achieving the 'funny because it's true, funny'. So I guess that only those who don't care about karma, as either a few black marks couldn't hurt an already fine reputation, or they just don't give a shit, should consider posting puns, memes and such, unless of course you are certain that it would be worthy of an 'insightful' or two.

Thank you I'll be here all week!

Re:In Soviet Russia

[einhverfr]

And another dissident investigating her death is poisoned with Polonium...

But Politkovskaya was no mere political dissident. She had been prevented from mediating an end to the standoff in Beslan but was poisoned on her way there. This lead her to accuse Putin of direct involvement in the school massacre. Soon after this, she is shot dead. Litvinenko, on investigating her death, is then poisoned with Polonium from a Russian nuclear reactor.

Even if Politkovskaya's allegations of Putin's involvement in the Beslan massacre turn out to be inaccurate, the subsequent assassination of both her and Litvinenko can only be called state sponsor of terrorism.

Re:obigatory joke

[shutdown -p now]

They won't, but I don't trust the news on the TV anyway. The opposition does conduct their own polls though, and while they don't show the same sky-high 70%+ ratings we see on TV, Putin still comes off as the most trusted and popular politician at the moment. Not acknowledging it for the fact is simply foolish.

Re:obigatory joke

[shutdown -p now]

Not that they do not have any other means to protest, in nowadays Russia you may protest as much as you want, nobody gives a shit

This hasn't been the case for at least the last 2 years. You have to obtain permission from the local government for any form of public protest (i.e. a demonstration), and they can refuse to grant it without explanation. In fact, the vast majority of requests filed by Other Russia (they planned demonstrations in many cities throughout the country, not just Moscow) were declined.

Re:obligatory joke

[DJCacophony]

Do you think that the South should have been allowed to secede from the rest of America? How about Chechnya from Russia? The former resulted in many more deaths, why are you not defending those poor Southerners and their slaves, if you favor secession so much? How about a little selection of the horrible misdeeds these poor "people of Chechnya" have committed?

• In October 2005, at least eighty-five people were killed in street fighting in the southern Russian city of Nalchik after Chechen rebels assaulted government buildings, telecommunications facilities, and the airport.
• A three-day attack on Ingushetia in June 2004, which killed almost a hundred people and injured another 120.
• A December 2002 dual suicide bombing attack on the headquarters of Chechnya's Russian-backed government in the Chechen capital, Grozny. Russian officials claim that international terrorists helped local Chechens mount the assault, which killed eighty-three people.
• A bomb blast that killed at least forty-one people, including seventeen children, during a military parade in the southwestern town of Kaspiisk in May 2002; Russia blamed the attack on Chechen terrorists.
• In Moscow, an August 1999 bombing of a shopping arcade and a September 1999 bombing of an apartment building that killed sixty-four people, and two more terrorist bombings in September 1999 in the neighboring Russian republic of Dagestan and southern Russian city Volgodonsk. Controversy still surrounds questions about whether these attacks were conclusively linked to Chechens.
• In 2004, when Basayev, ordered an attack on a school Beslan, a town in North Ossetia. More than 300 people died in the three-day siege, most of them children. There were thirty-two militants, all but three or four were non-Chechens, and all but one were reportedly killed during the siege.

Why should the people of Russia demand change in the policy against Chechens when the image they portray is not that of the righteous freedom fighter, but that of the ruthless, child killing terrorist? If my child was held hostage and then slaughtered, I wouldn't have much sympathy for their cause, either.