Editorial: decision to the tune of system

Photo: SCANPIX

Kremlin critics facing the «to be or not to be» issue

Russia’s anti Putin-Medvedev protest movement, birthed by obvious election fraud in December 2011 and unwinding somewhat these past months, arrived at a milestone yesterday. The unashamedly political conviction of the corruption-fighting activist and brightest opposition Alexei Navalny in Kirov means that the country’s awakened middle class and civil society stand at a crossroads.

The choice: accept the situation and give up ambitious of democratic changes – or unify and get more effective. Like Hamlet, the Kremlin critics need to ask themselves the question «to be or not to be».

To the jail sentence, the West reacted with statements expressing deep disturbance, questioning the independence Russia’s courts system. In reality, no such questions are needed, of course. In Russia, the courts serve the power, eat from its hand, and takes political decisions the way the Kremlin desires. Whoever watched the Navalny procedure saw what a fabrication it was – most of the witnesses to accusation were quite unable to substantiate the incrimination.

The end was determined before session ever begun – a person linked to the case agreed with the prosecutors, in order to escape jail; all was based on that person’s claims. Navalny’s co-accused Pyotr Ofitserov refused to do that, ending up behind bars like the main culprit.

It has to be admitted that, for Russia, the imprisonment of Navalny is nothing extraordinary. He just happens to be a comparatively well-known person. Even now, other procedures and investigations are underway, with the same political flavour.

In all probability, the same fate awaits the irreconcilable leftish oppositionist Sergei Udaltsov. Oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky is doing time for quite a while already, after daring to offer Kremlin some political competition. Though not virgin white, surely, in his business... however, businessmen of his kind continue to enjoy respect and liberty, thanks to cooperation with powers.

The punk girls of Pussy Riot were jailed for singing is a church – an act perhaps morally condemnable by the Orthodox, but in a secular society that ought to have been enough. Let us also not forget the clearly political criminal case of last year’s Bolotnaya Square protests in Moscow.

With the repressions axe hanging over the heads of many a Russian political activist, a fresh wave of their exodus would not come as a surprise. This very year. And that may concern Estonia: it is not hard to hop over from Moscow or St Petersburg.

We have hosted refugees before.