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Russia Issues Travel Warning To Its Citizens About United States and Extradition
mendax writes "The New York Times reports that the Russian government is warning its citizens to not travel to countries that have an extradition treaty with the United States, noting that 'detentions of Russian citizens in various countries, at the request of American law enforcement, have become more frequent.' The article reports the Russian foreign ministry as saying,'Experience shows that the judicial proceedings against those who were in fact kidnapped and taken to the U.S. are of a biased character, based on shaky evidence, and clearly tilted toward conviction.'"
Not too long ago that most people in the US would be worried about Russia being the bad guy in such situations.
Experience shows that the judicial proceedings against those who were in fact kidnapped and taken to the U.S. are of a biased character, based on shaky evidence, and clearly tilted toward conviction.
Yeah, Russia's the expert on that.
Still, it's amazing that the U.S. has become such a totalitarian police state that Russia can legitimately give them crap.
"Once we've identified and embraced our sickness, we'll have strength...and that's when we get dangerous." - John Waters
Americans arrest you!
Once not long ago I would have laughed now I'm just sad.
Please do not make this about "Right" vs "Left". Both parties love power, and don't really care about the citizens. When people bicker about "Right" vs "Left" it distracts from the real issues.
Your comment will probably get a lot of responses, just because of the hatred and misinformation that it contains. I'm not fan of the far left (nor the far right), but let's for a minute remember who created the department of homeland security. George W. Bush. Let's also take a look at who created the TSA. George W. Bush. Who signed the Patriot Act into law? George W. Bush. I don't know about you, but I don't think any of the people listed above are part of the 'Extreme Left'. Yet somehow the people I listed above have done a fabulous job restricting freedom. I'm not really interested in left or right. I just find it sad that people like you can't distinguish the forest through the trees: ALL our politicians have contributed to this problem. The sad fact remains: Russia is right. We are becoming a police state, especially with regards to extradition and our borders where we claim our laws don't apply.
There is a joke, but it's hardly funny. The joke is that the Russians are warning their people about America in the same way that America warned it's citizens about Russia in the 70's and 80's.
The American government has a very low level of support from everyone. Also, I'm sure that in many countries, the government has been noted to shit-talk America. Why is their so much more hype suddenly since the Snowden leak(s), and Syria's civil war? Everyone's worried about war. I know people of sane mind and body, that are preparing by stocking up on canned goods. And it's the American government that they're scared of, and it's mutated mentality of destruction of anything that it deems "bad" in the light of the moment only. Who wouldn't be afraid of such a government?
It's totally sane of any country to warn it's people about not having basic human rights in America. It used to be a kick-ass place to visit. Now, not so much.
Pay it no attention. Next thing you know the Ruskies will claim that America spies on its own citizens.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I'm not sure what the vegans and homosexuals have to do with this, but if i remember, a lot of this started under bush and has been embraced wholeheartedly by the present administration. If you think this is about left vs. right, you don't understand american politics.
Forgot GITMO and the number of people detained there without ever having seen a judge, or a lawyer?
A country where you can be taken off the street without any cause, just by labeling you a 'terrorist' sounds just like the Soviet Union, North Korea and Nazi Germany..
The extreme left? In the USA? Are you serious? To what very limited extent there even is a left in the USA it's what Europeans call the center or center-right...and this teabaggery gets modded up on /. What's next, Glenn Beck's goldline scam being pushed as sound investment and a top story? Weeping Jesus on the Cross what the Hell's happened to this place?
Propaganda works best where you have at least an element of truth. The conviction rates, sentences and so on for the poor and rich in the US legal system are extremely different (look also at black vs white). Imagine how much worse it is for a poor (relative to the USA - he could be pretty rich at home) Russian who doesn't properly speak English and has the huge psychological pressure of having nobody nearby he knows at all.
Simple fact: the US legal system is deeply scary; there is a huge false conviction rate. Remember what we are always told, death sentences are the ones that are most investigated and are 100% sure. The innocence project shows the US has a minimum of a 12% false conviction rate for death sentences; other crimes must be much worse. Unlike people convicted before DNA evidence, nothing new will show up after the fact to save you.
Most convictions in the US are "shaky" and many are simply wrong. I'm sure it's even worse in most of Russia, but if you are having to compare yourself with Russia then you have already gone mad.
The article cited Victor Bout. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Bout
Bout was an arms dealer who sold to both sides, as arms dealers, including Americans, often do.
I don't like arms dealers, but they're in a legal and sometimes necessary business.
They arrested somebody who couldn't break American law because he was never in America and wasn't a citizen.
I don't like Dick Cheney or Eric Prince either, and they've broken the law just as much as Bout did.
The U.S. never extradited Luis Posada, who bombed a Cuban civilian airliner and killed everybody on board, including a soccer team, despite many requests, and the U.S. never prosecuted Posada itself.
Let's follow the law and put them all in jail. Or ignore the law and don't put anybody in jail. But don't just enforce (dubious extraterritorial) laws against a Russian and not against Americans.
The summary says "the Russian government is warning its citizens to not travel to countries that have an extradition treaty with the United States", but the article says:
"The Russian Foreign Ministry posted advice of a somewhat different nature on Monday, cautioning people wanted by the United States not to visit nations that have an extradition treaty with it."
Unfortunately, that small omission significantly changes the meaning of the line.
I don't understand how we could legally arrest Bout. He wasn't a citizen of the U.S., he was never in the U.S., and he never committed a crime on U.S. soil.
He was a citizen of a country that often supported the side opposite of ours in conflicts, but that's not a crime.
Kissinger gave material support to regimes that were committing war crimes. If Russia wants to prosecute Kissinger, would we be legally required to turn him over? If Kissinger's airplane was forced to stop in Russia, could the Russians arrest him?
Maybe you don't believe in following international law. Maybe you believe in realpolitik and might makes right. OK, but you no longer have grounds for moral outrage when a militant group sets off a truck full of dynamite outside your embassy. They're just playing by the same rules you are.
> They arrested somebody who couldn't break American law because he was never in America and wasn't a citizen.
According to the Wikipedia page you quote, he was arrested for smuggling arms to FARC for use by rebels in Columbia against US troops.
Assuming he did supply arms to the enemy of an ally, that still doesn't break US law, nor does it make him a war criminal. The arms supplier of your enemy isn't a war criminal, and someone who does something out of your jurisdiction is, like it or not, free from your prosecutors.
TLDR; US forces has no legal standing to arrest, convict or detain their enemies arms suppliers.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
My thoughts exactly. It seems to me that US System has many flaws - no system is perfect but here the system is bad by principle - especially in drug cases. But even in normal criminal case not associated with drugs you may come to be offered confession for limited sentence or face a chance of losing the trial and getting much worse sentence because you were fighting it - how this has anything to do with justice I am not sure. Of course purpose of such solutions is not justice but efficiency i.e. making people motivated to settle down to save money for the state i.e. tax payer. This is not working properly because public prosecutors need convictions not justice. That is more efficient for them and their office. But what do I know - I am just a commie from an old continent....
cost cutting is part of the reason, but increasing the conviction rate is a much bigger part, it justifies the system because there's quantifiable "proof" that it's working - they must have been guilty, if they confessed or plead guilty.
it's also useful politically, to make people or organisations seem "tough on crime".
IMO, plea bargaining should be illegal with severe penalties for prosecutors who offer it.
at the very least, the fact that a deal was offered should be enough to reduce all charges and potential sentencing to the offer as a *maximum* - the cops/prosecutor wouldn't have offered it if they thought it was too lenient for the crime.
FWIW, I live in a country where such evil shit either doesn't happen or isn't common enough to be a noticable problem - although cops here (as everywhere) always pile on resist arrest/assault police charges just because they can - it's your word against theirs, and they are presumed to be honest by the courts.
The very thought of a "justice" system where it is considered *normal* to use the threat of insanely harsh penalties to coerce a guilty plea fills me with horror.
but then, our legal system isn't politicised - deliberately so, with clear and jealously guarded separation of powers - and we don't do stupid things like elect senior cops or judges. ours are professionals that work their way up through the ranks, not demagogues - which has problems of its own, but IMO they're nowhere near as bad as the problem of illiterate, incompent, prejudiced morons being elected just because they're popular or good at lying in public.
I remember all the american anti-russian, anti-soviet, anti-communist propaganda from when i was growing up in the 70s and 80s - there isn't a single shitful thing that the evil russians were accused of then that you americans aren't doing - or exceeding - now, and with far greater efficiency due to modern computers and technology.
Since we learned to cover it with so much bull and feelgood words that it doesn't matter anymore. We don't invade countries anymore, we join a peacekeeping mission, and after we won (sorry, after we reestablished peace) we don't occupy it, we establish a military presence in the area. There we don't infiltrate enemy groups and commit worse atrocities against the civilians than they do to convince them we're also some of the "bad guys", so we can ferret out their leaders for assassination, we engage in covert operations where we have to regretfully accept inevitable but necessary drawbacks for the local population, to enable us to identify top terrorists to neutralize them. And we don't do that with carpet bombing from unmanned drones where we fire at the least hunch that there might be someone we want to hit in the area, we launch preemptive strikes against the terrorist strongholds using top of the line equipment to protect the lives of our men and women serving in our military...
Need I go on or do you simply want to watch the News for more drivel like that?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.