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Russian Whistleblower Cop Arrested
Remember the Russian cop's YouTube narrative on police corruption? Reader Max_W writes with the news that Alexei Dymovsky, the cop whose videos started a movement, was arrested (Google translation; Russian original) on January 22, 2010. He is in prison in the south of Russia. Max_W adds: "It seems only a president is allowed to have a video blog in Russia."
According to Alexei in the indictment were not listed his specific criminal acts, but simply stated that he committed fraud. They say investigators have not found everything, because detailed charges will be filed Dymov later. In addition, it is not against the CCP [], was handed a resolution to bring an accused on the pretext that it is "secret" character.
So he is being held until final charges are issued? Sounds like something that would happen in every country.
I give it 48 hours till he's found dead in his cell by apparent "suicide" by drowning himself in a pissbucket
In Soviet Russia whistle blows you!
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Try putting on a Russian accent
Nice. What was her number again?
Seriously, was anyone really surprised? Mess with bad cops, and you'll come to a bad end. This is unfortunately true everywhere, including the United States.
than standing around outside waiting to be assassinated.
In Soviet Russia cops arrest you. oh wait.
In Soviet Russia, police corrupt you!
Did he lessen the status of corrupt bosses or the supposed glory of the state. Frankly regardless of which nation does this sort of thing the truth is that human history is dark and wicked and anyone foolish enough to actually believe that any nation's history is glorious needs a mental health professional and a lot of appointments.
Please. We should not merely talk and type about this tragedy. We should actually do something to help this victim of the Kremlin.
For example, we could start a fund for his legal defense and possible eventual escape from Russia to the West. For the sake of humanity, we must not allow the Kremlin to kill him. The Kremlin has already killed too many innocent people.
If this policeman dies mysteriously in prison, then I hope that someone -- anyone -- assassinates dictator Vladimir Putin.
Kinky.
While I do generally agree with your statement, this is something that really caught my eye
is remarkable proof that good people who think and act like Westerners still live in Russia.
possible eventual escape from Russia to the West. For the sake of humanity, we must not allow the Kremlin to kill him. The Kremlin has already killed too many innocent people.
Can I borrow your time machine back to cold war? Being someone who has actually lived in Russia and some time in the neighboring countries too, I don't see this "Western vs Russia" thing or rant about 'Kremlin'. People in Russia are extremely good people and friendly towards another human being. Even more than in western countries or my own country, where people usually are careless about each other. There is corruptness (sometimes bad too), but you do not change everything in a few days after fallen communism. It is getting there and this is another example about it.
But should you think "Westerners" as better persons for some reason? No. In fact, they're losing on that regard.
Sorry to say it, but this guy was on a "suicide mission". Whistleblower in Russia? The State Police are bad enough, the other guys are the Russian Mob. Good grief, either he's not married, or his wife has wisely left him bay now.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
In Palm Beach Florida County Florida they hold people up to 33 days without filing charges . They claim that they do not have to follow Fedral Law because they are a Commonwealth. They also claim that you don't have Miranda Rights, nor do you have a right to have an attorney appointed while in jail for those 33 days since no charges have been filed. So while you are technically correct, different states and counties handle things differently. We live in a much more Fascist society than most people realize.
(And don't tell me this isn't true, or this was some rare and bizzare exception. I actually had this done to me when they illegally extended Marshall Law after a Hurricane a few years ago, and every person from Florida in the jail went to great lengths telling me that this is perfectly acceptable, and just how Florida does things.)
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
If you mess with the bear, you have to be prepared for the claws.
In most CIS countries the police are corrupt. They have to be to survive, as their official pay is between 50 to 200 USD per month. And you need about 500 USD, so do the math... And you can see the picture.... Now if you also count the men in uniform who own cars that cost upwards of 6 figures "While making 200$"..
Or this guy:
http://tap-the-talent.blogspot.com/2008/12/judge-who-borrowedharvested-2mhr-2m.html
Got the money via an OIU...
In these systems the only people that are caught are the ones that are disliked by their higher ups, or the ones that turn out to be in the wrong time in the wrong place and then used as examples to others on the inside, as for the press-release the police will say "We are fighting the corruption..."
Russia, Iran, China, all great examples of what happens when the people get their own way. Some clever bastard comes along and dupes them.
Russia: you overthrew your terrible govt, you had some semblance of democracy, now you have Putin.
Iran: You had democracy, you had the shah, you overthrew the shah, then you voted for a dictatorship again. Good job.
China: you had a civil war, multiple citizens based movements, you ended up with a shitty one. At least you let it happen right?
Out of all 3 China probably had the least chance at democracy out of the bunch.
What did we learn? That proles are stupid and you can't give someone a democracy until the limitations on the govt are understood and clear.
The Dymovsky affair is more complicated than merely a whistle blower cop who had enough, went public, and is now being prosecuted. For starters in his videos his biggest complaints arent about the corruption in the Russian police, but about low pay, long hours, not enough vacation time and not getting overtime pay for overtime hours. Basically his rants aren't about the bad Russian cops but about the bad Russian government that doesnt pay its cops and Mr. Dymovsky in particular enough money. He also signals out his immediate bosses for special attention, but this is because his bosses were trying to get him fired for various things taking BEFORE he put anything on Youtube. Major Dymovsky had a habit of not coming into work for weeks at a time and there were numerous complaints about him basically alleging he himself was extorting various businesses for money before he put anything on Youtube.
Yulia Latynina who is easily the best credentialed opposition journalist in Russia has dismissed Dymovsky as a fraud on her radio show and in editorials. His complaint isnt with the system but with his own place in it -- he is no opponent of the Kremlin, but a guy who was trying to secure his own position.
His own ex-wife has called him mentally unbalanced. He had a messy divorce involving death threats and other assorted stories fit only for the tabloids. The core of the Russian opposition has attempted to distance itself from him which is why you wont find more than a single mention of his arrest on newsru.com. Kasparov's group is the only one that is still seemingly embracing Dymovsky, but that's no surprise as they are the most discredited of the opposition movements in Russia.
Generally, in cases such as these, people are really mean to badmouth the government, and they accidentally sound like they're badmouthing everyday [insert nationality here] citizens.
This is the exact same reason that, in articles about the Chinese and their government, indignant natives post nearly the same kind of posts. We really aren't talking about you, personally. We know the average Chinese, Russian, American, Brit, whatever probably isn't the problem. We are nearly always talking about your government.
Can I borrow your time machine back to cold war?
No you can't. Putin and Bush stole it a long time ago.
Faith is a willingness to accept something w/o complete proof and to act on it. Reason allows you to correct that faith.
Ironically, he is accused of "fraud abusing the official position" i.e. corruption. The investigation has started after "an appeal of concerned citizen" in December 2009, a month later his video post. Now, he was sentenced under accusation of threatening witnesses and is held in PTDC.
Unfortunately, Dymovsky is pretty dumb. His speech is intermittent, unintelligent, with many errors (he is a cop after all). He admitted, that during a phone conversation (which was wire tapped) he said, that if he had been falsely sentenced he was going to avenge the investigator and the judge. But after admitting this, he said that he was just "testing if he had been eavesdropped and if Government was going to react". Well, it did, Einstein.
Well Russians are actually nicer people than Americans if you go by prisoners per capita. Here have a look at the map:
http://www.nationmaster.com/red/graph/cri_pri_per_cap-crime-prisoners-per-capita&b_map=1
Russia has a higher murder rate though:
http://www.nationmaster.com/red/graph/cri_mur_percap-crime-murders-per-capita&b_map=1
Now I'm conflicted. How do you define nice again?
Je me souviens.
Invade Russia during winter at your own peril.
http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/minard
Je me souviens.
o rly?
I accept your apology:
;-)
Curfews were ordered in sixteen Florida counties including a 24 hour curfew in the barrier islands of Palm Beach and Singer Island. In addition, close to eight thousand National Guard troops were called in to maintain order. Some of the smaller airports including one in Tallahassee, the state capital, were closed. In addition, all of the popular theme parks were closed for up to two days, which resulted in a loss of $41 million dollars. A number of roads in Palm Beach County were simply unusable as they were submerged in up to four feet of water.
And again, it was an illegal Martial Law. Yes, I spelled it wrong. I also thought Hurricane Frances was spelled as Francis. Do you really expect a common criminal to be able to spell!
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Isn't Putin just the Prime Minister now? Term limits in Russia limited him despite his popularity as I recall. I am on a phone so I can no check.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Mr Putin, I didn't know you had a slashdot account. How's the weather?
Are we talking about the same friendly Russia that genocides population of "unfriendly" countries and installs puppet governments there to further repress the people? The same one that provokes another country into an attack in order to create jus ad bellum for an invasion and then annexes parts of that country? The one that runs exercise invasions of its neighbor near the border and claims that nuclear weapons could be used preemptively?
Note that I'm not saying that Russians are bad people (though having lived in several CIS countries I don't fully buy your claim that people there are nicer to each other), we're talking mostly about governments and policy here. I see how you could be offended by the suggestion that somebody acting out against corruption behaves like a westerner, but objectively corruption is tolerated significantly less in western countries so it's not a completely wrong or unreasonable thing to say.
Also, please don't start with "But, but Bush! Iraq!" line, everybody knows about it, it sucks, but it does not justify anything.
I googled "Palm Beach County Sheriff martial law" and found nothing.
That only applies to some.
Yes, the "good-hearted" people of Moscow who will see to it that my Black ass gets well and thoroughly whooped if I dare walk their streets.
I've been to 6 continents and several dozen countries. But I ain't going to Russia until it stops modeling its race relations on 1910 Alabama.
Go read up on American History pre-Iraq and tell me we haven't done the exact same things, or that Europe hadn't before us, or just about every other major power dating back to the original City-States.
In Soviet Russia the whistles blow you.
I saw this man's original video a while back (probably linked from /.). He's an honest cop trying to stand up for what he thinks is right. Any harm that comes to him as a result of his public denouncement of the corruption he was working with and under is an absolute horror in my mind.
If anyone has any practical suggestions as to what to do about this, I'd love to, not only hear them, but apply as much assistance as I can muster.
Dymovskiy is immensely known in Russia, and he get this popularity via Internet, via Youtube videos, which were shown also on many local TV stations and websites in Russia.
His arrest is not about what he said or did. He is not a man anymore, but sort of a media symbol. And it seems this new media, the Internet, disturbs many power holders in Russia.
They introduce a new Internet (Intranet?) with Cyrillic letters in URLs this year. They tried to ban Skype in Russian Federation.
But the Russian Internet community is fighting back: this creative video-protest "Hitler and Skype" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bxhs8jMnC7w in Russian language was viewed 1.6 million times, it is a large number for Russian Internet users.
And it does not stop, but developing fast. A new video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5159imju2Q of a rap singer, which is breaking absolutely all unwritten taboos of a traditional Russian language and culture, was viewed 2.3 million times.
This is what happening. The number of viewers of this new Internet stars and hits is approaching the number of viewers of a state-controlled TV media. And the government feels that it has to do something about it, because the taboos and social frames of the society are being overrun.
Many people in Russia and FSU are buying computers and connect to the Internet, because they hear that it is where the action nowadays, but not on a boring controlled TV.
The government cannot remove videos from Youtube, and it gives musicians, artists, journalists, bloggers an uncensored venue to express ideas and creativity. And it certainly attracts an audience.
I do not believe him. He might believe himself, but it is just plain stupid. He is being taken in custody for interfering with investigation. He explains it as "I was threatening the investigator, while talking on the phone with my friend not because I was going to injure him, but because I wanted to prove that the investigators were eavesdropping on my phone line illegally". What a joke. He is probably just mentally unstable.
Are you fucking retarded? I address this very issue in the last sentence of my post. Just because somebody else is as bad/worse is not an excuse for terrible behavior. Hell, let's all compare ourselves to Hitler, then we can get away with anything!
France: Sarkozy
US: Bush and now a clipped Obama blamed for not being able to instantly change everything the republicans did wrong so to punish him, you give the republicans even more power.
Britain: Oh okay these guys never had a revolution but still. Blair?
Holland: Bakellende.
Australia, Japan... the list goes on and on.
As Douglas Adams said, people are a problem.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Dymovsky was detained for making threats against the investigators, as they say. There's a criminal case opened against him, they suppose he stole 1,000 USD of governmental money while serving as a cop. Whether he did it or not, it's nothing too serious to be concerned much about him. Read in Russian: http://lenta.ru/news/2010/01/22/appregend/ Given the broad Russian fan-club of Dymovsky, no wonder the story appeared at SlashDot.
In Soviet Russia, you arrest cops !
one man's constant is another man's variable.
You make two huge mistakes in one short post:
who think and act like Westerners
What? you think only westerners have the courage to stand up for their convictions? Or is it that you think non-westerners cannot possibly think for themselves? I guess you haven't heard of these people before:
Mahatma Gandhi .. do I need to go on?
Aung San Suu Kyi
Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng
Chinese dissident Hu Jia
Nelson Mandela
If this policeman dies mysteriously in prison, then I hope that someone -- anyone -- assassinates dictator Vladimir Putin.
Nice! calling for the head of state of one of the largest countries to be assassinated!!
They didn't warn your ass before they arrested you. This is progress. Russians are thankful for Putin's soft fascism. It's not the cops fault this guy has a hearing problem when he was told to cut the shit out.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
So, what you're saying is the Russians are so backwards we should just be glad they don't make their women wear burkas, right?
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
In Russia the president can only serve two consecutive terms but there is no limit on the number of terms overall. So Medvedev is warming the seat for one season, then guess who is prez again? This is what Russians think about it and most of them tend to like it that way. On the whole it's still far from a true democracy but getting there. Baby steps, baby steps.
I was actually going to go with:
In Soviet Russia, Youtube watches you!
I am officially gone from
You bring up a good point about the Russians as a whole. Yes, there are plenty of them that are good people, but you can find good people in any country. I don't think "reporter" meant to insult the people of Russia, but its government ONLY, a field in which America is still winning. Hey, I wish it was different, but it isn't.
I want to say that the real changes in Russian society just start to begin. Even cops like this Aleksey Dymovskiy started to notice that something is wrong, that the society has its sicknesses, which it has to address and treat, in order to heal.
People in Russia are extremely good people and friendly towards another human being.
Which is, of course why all neighouring countries love Russia so much and bend over backwards to escape the clutches of the evil European Union and get closer to Russia. Just ask some of the people like the Latvians, Finns, Poles, Romanians, Czechs, Estonians or others who had to deal directly with Russian friendship and benevolence over the years what they think about the extreme goodness of Russia and the Russians. Ask the Jews who lived in Russia about the friendliness of Pamyat and similar organization of good Russians.
People in Russia are extremely good people and friendly towards another human being.
In reality, this simplistic view is just as wrong as the (more prevalent) opposite one.
The truth is that average Russians can be more friendly in close social encounters, but more hostile outside of them.
From personal experience, if you walk up to a random person you do not know on the street, and ask for directions, you're much more likely to get a friendly response on the streets of Auckland, Vancouver or Seattle than Moscow. Similarly, if you get into some kind of trouble (e.g. beaten up by some punk) on the street, people would be less less likely to intervene to help you.
On the other hand, people whom you know, even briefly - like coworkers - tend to be more open and friendly to you than Americans or Canadians are in similar situations.
On the whole, I wouldn't say that Russians are better or worse than Westerners. Personally, I prefer it in the West, but it's because I appreciate the overall level of politeness in day-to-day interactions between people who do not know each other, and I always had very few )but close) friends even in Russia, so the benefits weren't that important for me. I can certainly see how it could be exactly opposite for others.
It is getting there and this is another example about it.
Who is getting where?
Russians != Russian government != Russian state (this applies to every nation, by the way).
This isn't saying much about Russians, compare both to Asian societies and both are extremely rude.
My experience with Russian people have caused me to determine that there is no such thing as a queue in Russia (I am of British decent, I know what a queue should look like), I was in the Immigration line at Phuket International Airport where a Russian jumped from the other line in front of me and walked up to the Immi desk, I informed this person that the line started back there pointing over my shoulder but I was met with a death stare. Fortunately karma was not on their side and they were dragged off into the back (probably due to Visa issues, Thailand is kind of strict on Visas). I did utter the words Som Nam Na (got what you deserved, in Thai) as Thai police escorted them away, this got a bit of a muffled laugh from the Thai person behind me.
Now I readily accept that there are many different types of people within one society, in Australia we have our better people and our worse people and this is true for all cultures. Judging a society solely on the merits of it's worst individuals is a terrible method. If I were to judge all Eastern Europeans on my experience at Phuket International Airport, would you not have a problem? There are many different types of westerner (Australian, American, British, Canadian, French, German, Irish, Italian, Scottish and more) and most of these societies have radical differences, even between Australians and Americans there are big differences and our peoples are considered to have a lot in common.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Oops, they don't even need winter to freeze to death in Russia.
Je me souviens.