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

obigatory joke

[2.7182]

Checkmate!
Seriously, this sucks.

Re:obigatory joke

[sentientbeing]

He's obviously just a pawn in all this.

Re:obigatory joke

[SlashThat]

Actually this might benefit Kasparov's cause. He's a respected person both in Russia and abroad, and a move like this could provoke a stronger protest against Putin. I trust Kasparov has calculated this 6 moves ahead :)

Re:obigatory joke

[shutdown -p now]

I can't say for the other countries, but here in Russia most people do not appreciate Kasparov as a politician. That might have something in common with Putin's high approval rating.

Re:obigatory joke

[Kiffer]

I was gonna say
In Soviet Russia, Kasparov seizes you!
but that does not really apply.

In Soviet Russia, Pawns seize Kasparov!

sigh... I had to say it ...

Don't Worry

[Zeinfeld]

Don't worry. George Bush has looked at Putin's soul and pronounced it excellent.

Re:another obligatory joke

[Anonymous Coward]

First beaten by Blue, then by Red. For someone who spent the vast majority of their life pondering black and white, this has to be shocking splash of color.

In Soviet Russia

[EaglemanBSA]

In Soviet Russia, they sieze dissidents. What, you were expecting a joke? 'Cuz this isn't funny.

gratuitous IBM inclusion

[gargletheape]

Surely a story about the greatest chessplayer of all time, and a key campaigner for civil liberties in Soviet Russia counts as "news for nerds" without some Deep Blue window-dressing. Do we really need to fake-tag this story as being about supercomputers to get it here?

Re:gratuitous IBM inclusion

[Elemenope]

In 2004, the Libertarian and Green candidates for President of the United States were arrested for attempting to enter the building in which the presidential debates were being held.

Yes, it is that serious, and, yes, it does happen here.

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.

Re:The Kremlin Plays Brutal Chess

[iminplaya]

What I don't get is why people still act as if Russia wasn't a dictatorship while it clearly is.

It doesn't matter. It never did. As long as they're not Communist, everything is hunky-dory.

Re:The Kremlin Plays Brutal Chess

[happyemoticon]

Then why does America still have such close ties to China? Nixon and Kissinger really helped improve things, true; both America and China had bones against the USSR; and it's better to be at peace than at war (at least in my opinion, but why is there no strong ideological war being carried out? The real answer is that they're awesome trading partners, unlike the inefficient, walled-off USSR. I feel like I'm playing a shell game, and at some point, "democracy" was replaced with "capitalism". As was said before, now that they're pumping dinosaur juice out to the rest of the world and we can build a McDonalds in Red Square, we like Russia.

I suppose this is a trite observation. Of course democracy has been usurped by capitalism. I just hadn't really thought about it in terms of foreign policy before.

Re:Someone sieze that bitch Hillary

[rednip]

I wish our president had such powers to sieze anti-American politicians like Clinton I thought that was funny as hell and was about to moderate it as such, but the sad thing is, I'm not sure if hes kidding. As I've heard people say in all seriousness such things.

Re:"Stern but fair?"

[mapkinase]

I worked in Moscow for outsourcing company for several months. All of the developers were big Putin (and /.) fans. The popularity of Putin might be artificially bumped up by the relentless propaganda, but this propaganda plus excellent economic context works. People REALLY like Putin in Russia, brainwashed (which I am sure about) or not. So "fear of being imprisoned" as you nicely exaggerated has nothing to do with it.

You have to understand the political climate in Russia to see that Putinism does not have many alternatives, given sincere dislike of what West looks like in the light of American foreign policy.

Putin came to power "with the blood of Chechens up to his elbows", but he made some good changes in Russia after the lawlessness of 90's. That happened many time in history, that is how autocratic rulers usually come to power: after screw ups of democracy, they fix many things (and then they fall, of course, and that what will eventually happen to Putinisim as well). Autocratism vs democracy is like dinosaurs vs mammals. Dinosaurs are bigger and stronger, but mammals are more resilient.

Kasparov and other liberal opposition have ZERO influence or support in Russia. The only (very weak as well) opposition in Russia is a Communist party (do not laugh, it is not funny). The West of course do not care and they will support this puppet liberal opposition, anyway...

Putinism in Russia is for long for better or for worse (for whom?).

And "fairness" has very little to do in politics. Laws are typically broken by the powers.

Agreed

[einhverfr]

I would add that Iran is clearly far more democratic than Russia is today. Russia is more like Iraq under Saddam, where elections occur but nobody has any possibility of being elected except Putin. Despite meddling in the elections by the Council of Guardians, there are actual and real political dynamics which exist in Iran today. No such real dynamics occur under Russia today.

The big difference is that, unlike Saddam, Putin actually does have weapons of mass destruction.

Re:Agreed

[zzidre]

Don't get me wrong, but when a son takes the presidency after his father, only delayed by a man whose wife is likely to take it over after them all, it really looks like the difference is only that there are two elite groupings instead of one.