14 ms·
Garry Kasparov Arrested By Russian Police
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- sethbannon 14y agoThe tactics of the Putin regime are getting more concerning every day. In case anyone is curious, here's the backstory on the protest Kasparov was attending at the time: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/aug/17/pussy-riot-sentenced-prison-putin http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/aug/17/pussy-riot-sente... [EDIT] Here's a link to the BBC for background, for those that don't like the Guardian: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19302986 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19302986
- skylan_q 14y agoSorry, but why is it taken for granted that The Guardian is telling the truth about everything?
- _delirium 14y agoDo you have any suspicions about this particular article, or is it just a generic/offtopic attack on a newspaper you don't like? It seems to just be reporting fairly basic facts.
- skylan_q 14y agoThese major "news" outlets got their information on Syria all from one guy who sat in his apartment in London. How can we grant them credibility? Also, here's a link to an article that actually draws from a Russian article. http://www.forbes.com/sites/markadomanis/2012/07/31/what-do-russians-think-about-pussy-riot-the-answer-might-surprise-you/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/markadomanis/2012/07/31/what-do-... Good to get some news about Russia from something that isn't a conglomerate of media corps that is funded/protected by political interests that have a bone to pick with the current Russian regime. ;) (that is, news from russia)
- jeffool 14y agoYou completely failed to address his question. The article made no large claims? And the article you linked points to numbers saying that the large majority (74%) of Russians say the punishment should be "time served" (or, "let them serve a few months, starting from their arrest on May 6th"). And 63% say less than that. Only 26% of people thought they should be imprisoned longer. I honestly think you'd find people in the US that would this kind of punishment if you threw a punk rock protest in the middle of a large church. So while it seems like you're suggesting (without saying anything) that the idea that these people shouldn't be kept in prison is some Western pushed ideology in some attempt to unseat Putin or attack his legitimacy... It's a pretty common opinion. Held by the majority of Russians. At least, that's what your linked article said... (And that's not even taking up my issue with Forbes.)
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- ktizo 14y agoOh, hadn't you heard? There was a memo. New policy, started today, just after tea.
- mbreese 14y agoCNN http://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/17/world/europe/russia-pussy-riot-trial/index.html?hpt=hp_t3 http://edition.cnn.com/2012/08/17/world/europe/russia-pussy-... NYTimes http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/18/world/europe/suspense-ahead-of-verdict-for-jailed-russian-punk-band.html?_r=1&hp http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/18/world/europe/suspense-ahea... Many others: http://news.google.com/?q=pussy%20riot http://news.google.com/?q=pussy%20riot
- old-gregg 14y agoQuite amusing to see the word "regime" used so casually and self-righteously. As much as you may dislike Putin, I bet he's got more popular votes than Obama did, just visit an average Russian town 50 miles outside of Moscow and ask around. As a Russian I know first hand things aren't rosy, but they aren't so simplistic and cartoonishly evil as western media and comments on HN portray.
- incosta 14y agoAnd as a Russian I think you better shut up in this case. Things are'nt rosy for Putin indeed. And they're not as simplistic. I guess to make them simpler he got himself back in the office by rigging the vote and then by beating and arresting those who protest, Kasparov included?
- mladenkovacevic 14y agoAnd can I ask you something as a lover of irony: do you think he should shut up because he doesn't seem to value free-speech as much as you do?
- incosta 14y agoNo, because what he said was a lie. And he knows it.
- old-gregg 14y ago> And he knows it. Ahhr... you caught me! I am being paid by the KGB for deliberately spreading misinformation on the Internet, recruit boy scouts into the Komsomol and paint Ulysses Grant's beard in black to make him look like Karl Marx on every $50 bill I get a hold of.
- incosta 14y agoPaid or not, you do know that it's not possible to compare Obama and Putin in terms of popularity. Putin has been covered by all major channels in Russia exclusively for last 12 years, every single day. It's also not possible technically because he made a mockery of the elections process, and even then had to rig the vote. You also know that your claim about his popularity among Russians outside of Moscow is bogus but hardly verifiable to most people on HN: but he's just as disliked there as he is in Moscow. Don't portray Russian people as fools: they are not. And your talk about things not being so simple: how familiar. They are simple, my friend: Putin violated Russia's own laws including the Constitution, when he ran for the 3rd time, and he should not be the president, no matter how big you think his popularity is. He wants to rule forever? He will end up as a dictator. Simple as that.
- _delirium 14y agoKasparov's political role is interesting. He's been a thorn in the regime's side for some years now, but has only been moderately harassed. Not entirely sure why; perhaps the cost/benefit analysis of how much they fear him (probably not greatly) versus how much negative PR they get from going after him.
- tsotha 14y agoI think that's exactly what's going on. They were hoping if they just ignored him people would eventually lose interest. Since that hasn't happened it's on to plan B.
- waterlesscloud 14y agoWhat's Kasparov's status like with the people? Is he a kind of star or folk hero from the old chess days? Or has he been marginalized?
- itsuart 14y agoNobody cares about Kasparov. That is his status now and always been.
- huhtenberg 14y agoI don't know why this is downvoted as it's actually true. Kasparov was that great chess player who had a long battle with Karpov [1] and eventually won. Then for some reason he decided to abandon chess and go into politics instead. At that point he became uninteresting. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoly_Karpov http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatoly_Karpov
- xentronium 14y agoIt's sad that people now remember Kasparov as "that guy who defeated Karpov", because he'd been absolute best in chess for a long time. It's actually even sadder that he dropped chess over politics altogether.
- jakeonthemove 14y agoI know a lot of people believe Putin saved Russia, but I gotta say, having the same people in power for too long is never a good thing: they get comfortable, they lose their focus, things get stagnant and everything goes downhill from there. There's a reason why the US does not allow the same person to be president more than twice in their life (although that doesn't stop them from putting someone they trust in power).
- MatthewPhillips 14y agoU.S. didn't have such a regulation until the 50s, before that it was merely tradition.
- felipemnoa 14y agoThey put it there because many people got scared of a president staying for too long after Franklin Delano Roosevelt had won its fourth presidential term. They wanted to prevent a president from becoming a dictator.
- skylan_q 14y agoWould you have someone with a vested interest in the country running it, or someone who gets elected, steals from the country and runs off without consequence after 8 years? ;)
- lobotryas 14y agoKarsparov has a history of staging or attending protests and getting arrested. After his chess career ended he has been trying to reinvent himself as a "people's champion" and "pro-democracy" leader. So far this has mostly amounted to him getting marginalized and beaten up by police.
- skylan_q 14y agoThat's because his only support is outside of Russia. He's just a nuisance at most.
- civilunrest 14y agoIs your paycheck issued by the Russian government?
- Ingaz 14y agoThat's truth. In Russia we do not have normal opposition. Nemtsov - unpopular because of his past, Limonov - too radical, Kasparov - is just a clown.
- Steko 14y agoGarry was famously beaten by another machine in 1997. The most intriguing part of this affair to me has been the revelations of the patriarchy as basically tools of the KGB and now Putin. The airbrushed out $30K watch that bloggers found the reflection of. Wild stuff. Not that we don't have our share of corrupt clergy in the US but that the story we've always been told was of how the Russian church was oppressed and quietly waited out the evil Socialist overlords. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_of_Kirill_I_of_Moscow http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_of_Kirill_I_of_Mo... his predecessor: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriarch_Alexy_II_of_Moscow#Alleged_work_for_the_KGB http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriarch_Alexy_II_of_Moscow#Al...
- zalew 14y agoinfluential people get corrupted, film at eleven.
- mladenkovacevic 14y ago"Breaking news! Corruption and totalitarianism of the Russian government, KGB and orthodox church exposed by the unimaginable injustice dealt to the members of the Pussy Riot and undisputed chess champion Gary Kasparov" Anyways, here's what I was motivated to write in an earlier post on this topic: Why isn't Madonna or these other outraged people protesting over the 32 miners killed in South Africa? I understand 3 years (or is it 2?) is a tough punishment for what is basically vandalism by western standards (although I'm sure we can find examples or worse injustices in any of the western judicial systems). The organized and overblown reaction to all of this is much more about ruining Russia's reputation as a democratic nation than anything else. I've actually heard the nightly news-anchor here in Canada report on "International condemnation" of the sentencing. Are you fucking kidding me? Miners being gunned down for protesting in South Africa, Omahr Khadr still sitting in Guantanamo for something he might've been involved when he was 16, all the Wikileaks shit from Iraq Afghanistan... and the Pussy Riot going for a 2 year stint for vandalism is causing "international condemnation"?! If anything's made me aware of how alive the cold war is, this is it. Also this: I don't want to be misunderstood.. I'm in favour of Kasparov and the Pussy Riot doing what they're doing and fighting for a better government in Russia... as anyone should be doing for their country! But I am just irritated by the "better than thou" indignations echoed in media channels of the equally unjust western world that tends to ignore massive wrongdoings that are too inconvenient to the larger narrative.
- vacri 14y agoI don't know, why aren't people even aware of the Second Congo War, which with over 5 million dead is the most deadly war since WWII, and it happened in the last 15 years. The problem is simply that Africa is just not of interest to Western eyes. Had those miners been gunned down in Belarus, it would have made the wider news.
- true_religion 14y agoI wouldn't really hold it against Westerners to care about minor disputes in the nations on their continent because historically those minor disputes used to flare up into wars that affect them and their well being. Regional wars in other continents don't tend to have the same effect.
- rglover 14y agoHumanity is truly lost when a band named Pussy Riot can upset an entire government.
- wyclif 14y agoHere in the US, the mainstream media has been showing clips of the protests, including footage of Kasporov being arrested, but not identifying him. I had to do a double-take (I used to play chess a lot). I was 99.9% sure it was him. I hope he is treated humanely by the police.
- eatitraw 14y ago> I hope he is treated humanely by the police. Russian police can be very brutal, here is the video of Kasparov being arrested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cf55YyMC6qk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cf55YyMC6qk He is put into police bus, and then you can hear him screaming: "What are you doing?!" and "Aaaay"(not sure if it is transliterated correctly). I've read some blog post(from an activist who was in the same bus) pointing that he was actually beaten.
- 1gor 14y agoKasparov is a totally manufactured 'Russian opposition' figure. As late as 2004 he was a member of a US "Security Advisory Council" (NSAC). It was funny to see Kasparov's name on the website under the slogan: "Advisory Council members have dedicated their careers to American security", right next to assistant Secretary of Defence http://img717.imageshack.us.nyud.net/img717/1337/kasparov.jpg http://img717.imageshack.us.nyud.net/img717/1337/kasparov.jp... I respect his anti-Putin views, and his chess achievements, but how exactly can he make a political career in Russia with such a background? His current role is to get beaten occasionally by the police and to remind Western audience that Russian president is evil.
- ianb 14y ago> His current role is to get beaten occasionally by the police and to remind Western audience that Russian president is evil. Maybe so. I for one have been reminded that the Russian president is evil.
- shardling 14y agoThere's an awful lot of throwaway comments claiming that Kasparov is given undue coverage by the western media. Linking to some sort of actual analysis of this might be interesting; littering the threads with multiple repetitions of this as a fact is not.
- moo 14y agohere is a Reuter's quote: "Kasparov and his Other Russia dissident movement are not standing in Sunday's parliamentary election because they could not get registered as a party. They enjoy little public support among Russians but have a big following in the West." Taken from: http://in.reuters.com/article/2007/12/02/idINIndia-30790920071202 http://in.reuters.com/article/2007/12/02/idINIndia-307909200... By MIKE WHITNEY: "And a final word on Garry Kasparov On Sunday, while Putin's party "United Russia" was screeching to a landslide victory, Reuters News was busy taking mug-shots of the stony-faced Kasparov holding up Florida-style ballots claiming the voting was rigged. "They are not just rigging the vote," Kasparov moaned, "They are raping the whole electoral system. These elections are a reminder of Soviet elections when there was no choice.....Putin is going to have a hard time trying to rule like Stalin." Stalin? So now Putin is Stalin? First of all, when did Reuters begin to take such a keen interest in voting irregularities? It must be a recent development, becuase they were nowhere to be found in the 2000 presidential election. And when did they start to pay attention to "political dissent"? They certainly never wasted any video-footage on the antiwar rallies in the US. Are we to believe that they are more interested in democracy in Russia than America? And why is Reuters so eager to provide valuable column-space to a washed-up chessmaster who's only interested in making a nuisance of himself by bellyaching about voter fraud? That's not news; it's propaganda." From article dated December 05, 2007 Why the Council on Foreign Relations Hates Putin Why Murdoch’s Journal Loves Kasparov
- anovikov 14y agoThis is in fact good news. Things like that keeps Russia repelling talented people. It will ensure divestment of Russia of talent, and generation ahead it will be like big North Korea - country of destitute, drunk peasants - rather than like Iran - well-educated, agressive and strong. At least it will be safe for the outside world.
- solnyshok 14y agosome startup's recrutiment bus with a 'Go work in sunny and democratic California' slogan, would have looked interesting nearby Khamovnichesky court
- daniel-cussen 14y agoTIL naming your band Pussy Riot can keep you out of jail.
- xentronium 14y agoDid you mean the other way round? They got jail time.
- 1gor 14y agoOne fragment from a BBC documentary by Adam Curtis explains rather well the mechanics of current Russian pro-democracy campaign in the Western media. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=26Ir2xhL_po#t=9s http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v... The video deals with PR guru Edward Bernays work for his client, a United Fruit Company (UFCO). When a newly elected Guatemala president Jacobo Árbenz threatened to nationalize UFCO's plantations, Bernays engineered a campaign to turn the popularly elected president doing hugely popular things for his people, into a threat to democratic values and a communist with links to Moscow. In reality, Arbenz was no communist and no dictator, as the documentary points out. But Bernays has set up a shell American press agency which bombarded US media with reports about alleged freedom violations in Guatemala. Bernays has also apparently organised a few violent anti-US actions in Guatemala to support his thesis. As a result, president Arbenz was ousted in a coup and replaced with a proper dictator, which was generally viewed as a good thing by the freedom-loving public in the US. Interestingly, the whole time the United Fruit Company has been kept out of the picture, even through it was paying for the campaign. The whole BBC documentary http://centuryself.blogspot.com/ http://centuryself.blogspot.com/ is quite interesting.
- smsm42 14y agoSo you're saying Western media invented the 2 year sentence and in fact nothing like that happened? There are no freedom violations in Russia and only reason why such reports appear is because some corporations want to take over Russia? Or what that Guatemala example has to do with Russia and Putin?
- 1gor 14y agoPussy Riot performance looks like a planned provocation. There are many ways to get yourself arrested, if you really want to. In Europe, you can get jail for hate speech, for example, (though not in the US, where it is constitutionally protected) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech Don't forget, Pussy Riot have been jailed not for singing an anti-Putin song, but for inciting religious hatred. They were screaming profanities in the cathedral. (They didn't sing in the church, had no time, they were removed after 40s, the song about Putin was added later to their YouTube video).
- jaekwon 14y agoKasparov made a gambit, and finally Russia has bitten. Next move is Kasparov's.
- xentronium 14y agoI am surprised by the fact that there were no news about Pussy Riot getting jail time for dancing in balaclavas in the church, Quinisext Council (692 A.D.) being cited in court in 2012, but instead there is an article about Kasparov arrested by police. Oh wow. Don't worry about the guy, he'll be released in 15 days tops. Not that I think that any of this should be on HN front page.
- jongleur 14y agoHow hard is it to verify a brutal beating? Bruises at least, right?
- misobolev 14y agoit is hard to see the truth if you grew up in the Western world and take a lot of freedoms for granted. What the "sipping cappuccino in the safety of Starbucks" crowd(i.e. most of you) fails to see is that the trial and sentencing is not about the girls or what they did or how the same act would've been treated elsewhere. It was about showing that in this land of arrogant and righteous thieves any hope for fair justice is lost.
- batista 14y ago>"Breaking news! Corruption and totalitarianism of the Russian government, KGB and orthodox church exposed by the unimaginable injustice dealt to the members of the Pussy Riot and undisputed chess champion Gary Kasparov" How about: undisputed chess champion Gary Kasparov also double-times as a champion of a certain western power's interests in Russia and goes around challenging the democratically elected government that has a huge popular vote behind it? The same western powers that want some idiot controllable puppet running Russia, and pretend that their issue is with Putin's "cronyism" and "corruption" (because, stuff like multi-billion war contracts to friends under Bush, or the trillion dollar financial firm bailout, or all the laws passed in favor of this or that lobby, are not cronyism/corruption). Strange how little the same western powers and their mass media protest the Assange situation.