Russia normalises torture in case against anti-fascists

Re-posted from Red Pepper.

Evidence that anti-fascist activists were tortured by Russian federal security officers is “really disturbing”, president Vladimir Putin told the Kremlin’s own human rights council in December. He promised to “look into it”.

But ten of the young activists in question remain in detention awaiting trial in the “Network” case, charged with organising a terrorist group and illegal possession of weapons. The prosecution’s main evidence comprises statements taken after the accused were tortured with electric shockers, hung upside down, throttled and beaten up for hours on end.

The FSB, Russia’s main security service, claims members of the “Network” were planning to organise bombings during Russia’s March 2018 presidential elections and the football

A demonstration in St Petersburg on 19 January, remembering the murdered anti-fascists Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburova. Photo by Elena Lukyanova, Novaya Gazeta

World Cup, that they planned an armed uprising and were “stirring up the masses for further destabilisation of the political situation in the country”. It says that defendants had assigned roles (leaders, communications personnel, sappers and ideological officers), discussed their plans on social media and held minuted meetings about them.

The FSB case includes the fact that all the defendants played airsoft (a team shooting sport with no live ammunition) and that some of them did physical training together.

The ten, mostly supporters of anti-fascist and anarchist groups, were detained in late 2017 and early 2018. In January 2018, one of them, Viktor Filinkov, made a detailed public statement about being tortured; two other defendants, Ilya Shakurskiy and Dmitriy

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Leeds women workers’ story retold

I am very pleased to publish today an article about the Leeds clothing workers’ strike of 1970: “You’re not a worker, you’re a pair of hands.” How Leeds women workers struck back, by Liz Leicester. It describes an unofficial strike by almost 30,000 clothing workers who demanded an increase in the hourly pay rate of one shilling (5 pence, worth about 75 pence today, taking into account). The action snowballed as the strikers, mostly women, marched around the city calling on others to join them. They were angry at an agreement signed between their union and the employers’ federation which discriminated against women workers. The article is based on a talk Liz gave in December 2018 in London.

Strikers on the march, 1970. From the Secret Library Leeds blog / Yorkshire Evening Post

New Russian torture case provokes student anger

Hundreds of Moscow students have joined a protest campaign over the arrest and torture in detention of Azat Miftakhov, a graduate student at Moscow State University.

Miftakhov was rounded up together with ten other anarchist activists, and charged with

Azat Miftakhov. Photo from Autonomous Action / The Russian Reader

preparing explosions. (See reports in English here and here.)

Miftakhov, and Daniil Galkin, were denied access to lawyers, brutally tortured and paraded on state TV. At least ten other people were arrested.

Many people in Russia feared a new case, similar to the “Network” case, in which a group of anti-fascist activists were tortured in detention and are now awaiting trial on terror-related charges.

When Miftakhov disappeared in to the security service’s dungeons, his fellow students put together a protest letter demanding “the immediate cessation of torture”. It was signed by more than 250 teaching staff, more than 500 students in the mathematics faculty where Miftakhov is studying, and more than 800 others from other faculties and outside the university.

Here is the text of the letter. You can read – and sign – the original here.

An open letter in support of mathematician Azat Miftakhov

Multiple sources confirm that on February 1, 2019 Azat Miftakhov, a graduate student of the Moscow State University Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics, was detained on suspicion of manufacturing explosives. He was tortured by the police and the Federal

Russian security services may have used agent provocateur to frame up anti-fascists

Anti-fascists have launched an international campaign to defend Russian activists who have been arrested, tortured in detention, and charged with terrorism-related offences in the “Network” case.

The Federal Security Service (FSB) claims that 11 people arrested in St Petersburg and Penza were part of an underground terrorist group seeking to sow disorder ahead of the 2018 Russian Presidential elections and the football World Cup.

Several of the detainees have described in detail how they were tortured by the FSB. For example, Viktor Filinkov described how he was tortured with an electric shocker after being

Demonstrators in London on 19 January, showing solidarity with the “Network” case defendants

detained at St Petersburg Pulkovo Airport in January 2018. Filinkov stated that FSB officers put him in a minivan, and then drove him around the city while torturing him into learning a forced confession.

The quasi-official Public Monitoring Commission has compiled evidence of torture, and the issue was raised on the Kremlin’s own Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights. Nevertheless, preparations for what the defendants and their families describe as a show trial continue.

On 19 January, demonstrations in solidarity with the defendants were held in Moscow, St Petersburg, Kyiv, London and other European and American cities. (Information on the London event here and here.)

On 17 January, defendant Igor Shishkin received three and a half years for participation in a terrorist organisation. Shishkin admitted his guilt and came to a pre-trial agreement with the investigation. Most other defendants have renounced their confessions, referring to the fact that they were tortured by FSB officers.

The following text, by TATYANA LIKHANOVA of the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, describes the use of what appears to be an agent provocateur in the “Network” case. This agent, who attended the same sports club as one of the case’s investigators in Penza, previously gave information to Ilya Shakursky, one of the defendants, and appears to have encouraged Shakursky to take radical action. We translated it with the author’s permission.

***

Following the conviction of Igor Shishkin, his lawyer Dmitry Dinze published several extracts from the case materials in a Facebook post. According to this post, a certain “V.I. Kabanov

“Russia’s ‘anti-fascist’ fascism is not a far-away, exotic reality.” It’s here

What they said at the 19 January demonstration in London to support Russian anti-fascists

More than 150 people marched through the east end of London on Saturday, to voice solidarity with anti-fascists in Russia.

The march was held on 19 January, the tenth anniversary of the killing in Moscow of two prominent Russian anti-fascists – Stanislav Markelov, a lawyer, and Anastasia Baburova, a journalist. The date was marked by demonstrations in Moscow, St Petersburg, Kyiv and other cities in Russia and Ukraine.

The event expressed solidarity with 11 Russian anti-fascists who have been arrested and tortured in detention in the so-called “network” case. These young people have been

The London demonstration on Saturday

beaten up, struck repeatedly with electric shockers (like cattle prods), hung upside down and suffocated by security services officers.

The London event started at the Cable Street mural, which commemorates the “battle of Cable Street” in 1936, when the fascists were driven out of the east end. It ended at Altab Ali Park, named after a young Bangladeshi textile worker killed by fascists in 1978.

Right-wing radicalism grows from social injustice, M from Russia said to the marchers in a speech before they set out. “As long as we have rich and poor, people will be angry”, he

Relentless repression in Russia: why we will demonstrate on Saturday 19 January

On Saturday 19 January we will demonstrate in London, in solidarity with Russian anti-fascists. Eleven of them, who have been arrested, tortured and accused of fabricated “terrorism” charges, are awaiting trial. Many others have faced a relentless campaign of persecution by officers of the federal security services (FSB) and the police – which is reviewed in this article.

Please join us on Saturday, to support the Russian anti-fascists and strengthen international solidarity against fascism, xenophobia and state terror. Please re-post and share this article.

Details of our London event here.

 

2018 summary

By Misha Shubin, 31 December 2018 (Original Russian text here)

I’ve also decided to sum up the year’s results. Not the results for me, but rather to remember what happened to anarchists and leftists in Russia in 2018. This post will be long and many of you know about, or heard something about, the events that I recount here.

Protest in Russia about the “network case”, summer 2018. The poster reads: “electric shocker: confessions 100% guaranteed”

But I think it is very important not to forget about all this. [Note. Links from the original article to Russian-language sources are included. Links to English translations or relevant articles in English added where available. Translator.]

 

The “Network Case”

Eleven anarchists and anti-fascists have been arrested. They are accused of setting up a terrorist group and preparing terrorist actions. According to the Federal Security Service (FSB), they wanted to organise an armed uprising in Russia.

Almost all the evidence has been gathered with the help of torture. The detainees were beaten up. Some of them were tortured with the help of shocks from a stationary electric dynamo, others with hand-held electric shockers [similar to cattle prods]. At least one of the accused, Dmitry Pchelintsev, was hung upside down.

The accused are: Yegor Zorin, Ilya Shakursky, Vasilii Kuksov, Dmitry Pchelintsev, Arman

From a Russian prison: “Give people freedom, let them be carefree”

On Saturday 19 January we will be demonstrating in London in solidarity with Russian anti-fascists, including those being incarcerated and tortured by the security services. Please come to join us – meeting at the mural in Cable Street, London E1 0BL at 2.0pm. There will also be events that day – the tenth anniversary of the notorious killing of anti-fascists Stanislav Markelov and Anastasia Baburova in Moscow – in Russia and Ukraine, and other European countries.  

Here is a message to supporters, sent to mark the new year by the imprisoned anti-fascist Viktor Filinkov, who was arrested in St Petersburg in January 2018 and tortured by officers of

Viktor Filinkov, under guard, on his way to a court appearance. Photo: Rupression

the federal security service (FSB). He and 10 others are in detention, awaiting trial on trumped-up “terrorism” charges denounced as fraudulent by human rights organisations, in the so-called “network case”. Please share and re-post.

==

Viktor Filinkov wrote a letter to Grandad Frost [a Russian fairytale character, like Santa Claus] in Veliky Ustyug [where he lives, according to legend] and sent us a draft for review.

Hello, Grandad Frost!

I am writing to you from St Petersburg, from the same place where Lenin served time.

In the new year 2019, I would like you to give at least a little justice to all those in need.

Help the regional heads of Memorial, Yuri Dmitriev from Karelia and Oyub Titiyev from Chechnya. [Memorial is Russia’s largest human rights campaign organisation. Dmitriev was framed by local security services on child pornography charges. A court found him not