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Anti-Government Webmaster Shot Dead By Russian Police
J.Tatar and a number of other readers alert us to the shooting death of an anti-government webmaster while in police custody in Ingushetiya, a volatile province in southern Russia. Police took Ingushetiya.ru owner Magomed Yevloyev off a plane that had just landed in Ingushetiya. "Yevloyev ... was a prominent opponent of the pro-Kremlin president of Ingushetia, Murat Zyazikov [a close ally of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin]. Prosecutors have opened a preliminary manslaughter investigation after Yevloyev was shot in a police car in Narzan, the capital of volatile Ingushetia, a mostly Muslim region that borders Chechnya, Russian media reported. A spokesman for the prosecutor's office, Vladimir Markin, said 'an incident' took place after Yevloyev was taken into a police car 'resulting in a shooting injury to the head and he later died in hospital,' Interfax reported."
-1 naive
Yeah, because police shoot people in the head (who they already have in their custody and in a police car) all the time. It just happens... right. I'm sure it's not just because he was stirring up unrest against the Russian government.
Maybe an alien had taken him over and they were killing it. Got any other alternate theories?
Realize that Magomed was shot in the temple, that's a guaranteed way to kill someone. It was no accident, it was premeditated.
You can't handle the truth.
"You have such nice things in the U.S...like warning shots!"
What?
Suicide.
How we know is more important than what we know.
The officer just tended to emphasize things by pointing his pistol and the roads around there are very bumpy. Complete and unfortunant chance. Could happen to anybody.
Haven't you ever seen Pulp Fiction?
[for an unspecified reason]
A BBC article on this says:
Reports quoting local police said Yevloyev had tried to seize a policeman's gun when he was being led to a vehicle. A shot was fired and Yevloyev was injured in the head.
Ingushetia website owner killed by police: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/01/russia1
... They threw him out of the car near the hospital," Kaloi Akhilgov told Reuters by telephone. "He was discovered there and they quickly put him on the operating table, which is where he died."
"As they drove he was shot in the temple
Sounds pretty conclusive to me. The last time I shot someone in the head "accidentally" with my gun, I also threw him out of the car because I was "careless". Wake up.
You are correct. He was eliminated for his views on the Ingushetian provincial government - specifically, for his views on Ingushetia's governor Zyazikov, whose policies have brought the province to the brink (some say over the brink) of civil war. It is a great mystery just why the Kremlin continues to support Ingushetia's current administration.
Sometimes, the federal government has to give its support to a competent, but thuggish, local administration in order to restore order and peace (see Chechnya for an example). But if the thuggish local administration is failing to do its job, why the hell is it still being propped up?
Maybe they were duck hunting at the time?
Control is an illusion, order our comforting lie. From chaos, through chaos, into chaos we fly
Why is it relevant that Ingushetiya is mostly Muslim? What does that irrelevant factoid have to do with this news?
The only thing that I fear it is relevant for, is for the inevitable Kremlin propaganda offensive to paint themselves as defenders against the Muslim barbarians. A tactic that worked very well to get the Chechnyan separatists out of the Western news and gave Russia a free hand to do whatever they wanted in Chechnya.
Obligatory disclaimer: the Chechnyan separatists were bastards. That does not wipe out the strong suspicion that Russia played on fears of Muslim terrorism in the West for propaganda purposes.
Mart
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
Maybe the police officer's was Dick Cheney's evil Russian twin. You know, accidently shooting folks in the head ;)
Ahh, what am I thinking, Dick Cheney IS the evil twin.
-1 naive
While it looks suspicious, and certainly goes along with the current wave of anti-Russian sentiment, I have to agree with the GP - let's wait for more information instead of jumping to conclusions.
While a Slashdot thread has a minor effect on overall public opinion, every single increment brings us closer to "accepting the inevitability" of an actual conflict with Russia - something which Bush and Putin would both seem to benefit from wrt power consolidation.
We're geeks, we have brains if we choose to use them - we can do better. And yes, I am new here.
Of course we will. You don't see any U.S. peacekeepers on their way to Georgia, do you? Well, except maybe for the other Georgia just in case the hurricane goes four or five hundred miles to the east before it makes landfall, that is.... :-)
Okay, to be fair, if they start to encroach on Georgia's oil fields, the U.S. might get involved. The rest of those former Soviet states, though---the ones who aren't sitting on oil---I think it's safe to say they're on their own. I'm not saying it's right; I'm just saying that if you think the current U.S. government is going to lift a finger to help anybody without it being for their own significant political gain, you've clearly been living under a rock the last eight years.
Bush Presidency Countdown Clock
Fool me... you can't get fooled again....
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Better yet, suicide by cop. Instant martyr and story on /.
The odds are that we will never know the truth. If we do, there will always be some doubt.
If you heard a report back in 2000 that Saddam Hussein had had yet another person killed, you'd think it was just par for the course. If rumor was that Bush allowed another fat-cat single-source contracting deal with his friends, you'd think it was probably true. Why? Because it falls in with that person's modus operandi.
Putin's Russia has been a very dangerous place for anyone who has opposed him, or even tried to investigate what was happening under him. Many are dead, exiled or in jail. So while I won't automatically put this in the "It's true" category, it does belong firmly in "Most likely true."
Oh wait, never mind.
The odds are that we will never know the truth. If we do, there will always be some doubt.
Unfortunately this is something people can count on often. Corrupt officials use this as the perfect getaway. Not that i know what really happened here, i just want to comment on how often something ends like that.
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
There was Putin and his public dislike of all things US. The radioactive poisoning. Some FBI link to a SPAMMER inside of Russia but Putins government would not let US prosecutors go after them. The election where Putin creates a seat so he's still on top. More anti-US rhetoric. And more recently the Georgia incident where Putin is the one in the press on the first and second day. After that it is the acting President but it was pretty obvious Putin is da man.
Now a hole in the head of a webmaster while INSIDE a Police car. It all sounds like the old USSR and KGB era tactics to me. Well, it was good for some while it lasted. IMO
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Got any other alternate theories?
Yes, the Kremlin is hard at work on another Soviet Union. Oh, and your votes count so long as your voting for the right people. If you don't, they will paint a nice red picasso with your brain matter.
Does that about sum it up?
Life is not for the lazy.
For additional information about this heinous crime, read the report just issued by the "Daily Telegraph" (DT). According to the DT, "Mr Yevloyev is the most prominent anti-Kremlin journalist to be killed since Anna Politkovskaya was shot dead in the lift of her apartment block in October 2006. ... Russia is considered to be one of the world's most dangerous countries for journalists."
The "Wall Street Journal" provides more information about this and other suspicious deaths of well-known journalists. According to the WSJ, "Mr. Yevloyev was the latest in a series of Russian journalists to have died in suspicious circumstances. The death of Anna Politkovskaya, who was shot in October 2006 at her Moscow apartment, highlighted the dangers faced by Russia's independent press. Ms. Politkovskaya was a lead reporter at Novaya Gazeta, a Moscow-based newspaper that specializes in muckraking and probes of government corruption. She was the third journalist at the paper to die under mysterious circumstances. Paul Klebnikov, editor of the Russian edition of Forbes magazine, was shot on a Moscow street in July 2004."
After I read these news articles, I could think of only 4 words: God damn the Kremlin!
Got any other alternate theories?
John Travolta was leaning over the back seat, gun casually dangling from his hand while he debated philosophy with the prisoner. Driver hit a speed bump, finger squeezed the trigger and before you know it Yevloyev's head is all over the back window.
Complete accident!
Godwined in the first three sets of page down comments. I'm not sure if that's a record but it's damned close.
Err... Well played my good sir?
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Where in the article does it say that the murderers were "under direct orders from the Kremlin"? As far as I can make out, these were local cops who acted under the orders of the provincial governor Zyazikov - the main target of Yevloyev's criticisms.
those who say invading georgia is like the usa invading iraq?
where are those who say russia's invasion of georgia is the usa's fault?
it's all morally relative, right? we have to let russia do anything they damn well please, because the usa did something bad once, right?
i have a crazy idea: why can't we condemn them both?
why can't you condemn the usa, AND condemn russia?
given that, with all of the vitriol some of you found to fling at washington dc in recent years, why can't you fling some of that now at moscow?
or do crimes of war only stick to the west?
are you motivated by principles? or some weird geopolitical vendetta? (and therefore, part of the problem)
if you are motivation by principles, you must condemn russia now as hard as you condemn the usa
fight imperialism, wherever the fount
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Godwin or not, but this is truth. Of course i should have written "Russian politics and rethorics is identical to germany in 1930" to avoid the issue. But that what happening in russia and if world will react like last time then we are heading to WWW III.
As opposed to the US which has a highly organized military that is heavily dependent on the drip-feeding of massive quantities of tax dollars that are fast becoming scarcer and scarcer, fed to it by a government that is now so deep in debt that it it unlikely that anyone alive today will ever see it balance.
If you ask me, Russia has a greater capacity to wage war than the US currently, after when you factor in the miserable state of US government financial conditions and the world at large's hostility towards US military adventurism.
I hate printers.
That reminds me of a crude joke that seems to have truth in it at times regarding law enforcement.
"What did the Alabama patrolman say in regards to the black man found shot 16 times in the back? Worst case of suicide he'd ever seen."
Even during the cold war the communist governments werent this open about killing their opponents. A possible explanation for this mode of operation is that someone wanted to send a clear message along the lines of "we do what we want - fear us". Or maybe it's just a tragic occurence Hanlon's razor (they police might actually be that stupid).
To all the people who support the thesis:
We don't know what happened, as nerds we should wait for more information instead of jumping to conclusions.
You're plain wrong, and just silly. The exact design of this assassination is:
You know exactly what happened, and that we can get away with it. Fear that.
Webster definition describes exactly what is happening in Russia. Definition 1:"often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government" - It has been the case in russia all the times during at least past 150 year. "headed by a dictatorial leader" - Do you think Putin is honest good democratically elected leader? NO. There can't be free elections when there is no free mass media or journalism. Putin is former KGB officer. KGB officers were not misleaded average guys. They knew perfectly where they were working and what they were doing. I have lived in the country ruled by KGB, I know. "severe economic" - russian government is taking over major russian companies. For example Yukos. Ff the business owners doesn't agree the they are thrown to prison (Mihail Hodorkovski case) "and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition" - for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_Russia
Actually, TFS says he was shot in the car. For these to both be true, the cops would have had to have found a drive-through temple. I guess it would make confession more convenient.
Given, however, that the incident occurred in a Muslim area, finding such a temple seems unlikely...
Jean Charles de Menezes, 22nd July 2005, Stockwell Tube station, London, United Kingdom. de Menezes was shot eight times while on the floor being restrained by several police officers.
"Yes, Georgians did attack"
Well, not quite. The separatists and russian troops combined an attack on the 6th of august, and this is what the Georgian troops reacted to by going through Tskhinvali.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
There is information circulating - in Russian, so I doubt it is of any use to quote here - Russian radiostation Echo Moskvi interviews - that Russia was preparing for the war for quite some time and trying to edge Georgia towards doing something that could lead to invasion.
At any rate, the probable truth is this:
- there have been tensions between Ossetian region and Georgia for quite some time, blood feuds and what not;
- it is conceivable that Georgian behaviour towards Ossetian inhabitants where they had power was as bad as Ossetian towards Georgian. This could be related to the old grudges when Georgians had to flee Ossetian territories earlier.
[You know a good old blood feud when you hear about atrocities commited from both sides and nobody can make neither head nor tail of it.]
- Georgian current president has been pro-West oriented, and plans were underway for making an oil pipeline through Georgia that would bypass Russia.
So, essentially what we have here seems to be Russia trying to prevent Georgia from supplying West with oil by egging on old feuds in the region.
As regards support for Ossetian independence - it is probably a good move. One can only wonder why did Russia went to war TWICE with Chechnya recently, in order to PREVENT their independence though.
Yes. I'm estonian. Let me to tell you a story. When i was a kid, I asked from my granny - where is my grandpa. My granny told me, that my grandpa died in a prison in Siberia. He was simple fisherman, who gave food to his relative who was seeked by russian police. Then I asked my father, where is my other grandpa. My other grandpa was forced to Red Army and was killed there. My mother in law was sent to Siberia by russians, when she was about 6, with her old grandma, because her mother wasn't cooperative enough. And this is the story of average estonian family. Of course i'm brainwashed by media!
Seriosuly - compare what you are saying to what the US is doing. invading countries, guantanamo bay, anti-terrorism laws. etc. The US is not different, russia is simply reacting in order to stay in the game and not be controlled by the US.
Maybe what Russia is doing is wrong on some ethical level. But it sure as hell is no worse than the US, so get of your high horse.
Some facts to make you feel less comfortable spouting patriottic nonsense:
1) You're wrong. The US is #26 in debt with 60% GDP. Some european countries are worse (eg belgium at 85%, france at 64), some are much better (eg holland at 46%, UK at 43%, spain at 35%).
2) US citizens don't save money, but are in debt themselves (eg creditcards). This means that most of the US debt is in the hands of foreign countries or nationals, while a large part of the european public debts is in European hands since europeans save a lot more.
3) The US imports way more than it exports (currently, the trade deficit is 600 billion (!), down from 800 due to the extremely weak dollar). Since these goods have to be bought capital flows out (eg to gulf states for buying oil). This capital flows back in the form of investments in US companies. This sounds good, but what it means is that you are selling Americal companies to foreigners to pay for your consumption. The EU countries generally have trade balance or surplus