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Russian Whistleblower Cop Arrested

Posted by kdawson on from the predicted-it-himself dept.

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."

3 of 199 comments (clear)

  1. Corrupt cops act corruptly, film at 11 by russotto · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Corrupt cops act corruptly, film at 11 by wizardforce · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No matter how common abuses of power are, they should never ever become so mundane as to not be newsworthy.

      --
      Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
  2. Re:It's more complicated a story than it appears by Theleton · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm sure you're right, but it's also true that most whistle-blowers have petty and selfish motives, and that they are often driven by personal grudges (which they tend to have a lot of, since they are generally quarrelsome and problematic people). Deep Throat apparently exposed Watergate because he was bitter about losing a promotion.

    It takes an unreasonable person to go up against the system and against the culture of one's organization. These people may not be personally admirable in the way we might like for a Hollywood good-guy/bad-guy story, but that doesn't make whatever revelations they provide less important. Nor does it make it OK to persecute them for it.

    Now maybe Dymovsky was arrested for some other shit he was involved in, but given Russia's history with internal critics, that would not be my first guess.