They tried to murder him and after spending time in a German hospital he decided to go back knowing that they'll imprison him or try to kill him again.
I think the risk was huge (personally I thought 50-70% at the time), but not 99% or something. Also (in my opinion) people don't take into account that alternative was irrelevance in exile, just look at what happened with Kasparov's popularity inside Russia, and he was a prominent opposition activist in 2011-2012.
Still, people tend to value their life higher than their relevance - I mean, in the West he could have probably lived a comfortable life writing books and articles, working as a TV expert on Russia etc. I also respect his decision, but seeing that the powers that be already tried to kill him once, the chances of him returning to Russia and not being arrested were even lower than 1% I would say...
> Still, people tend to value their life higher than their relevance
That's exactly what sets rare individuals like Navalny apart: that what they believe in, what they stand for, weighs heavier than their personal well-being.
> he wants the same Russian empire as Putin, but with less corruption.
Exactly. I don't understand fascination of some westerners towards Navalny. He used to attend nazi rallies (literal sieg-heiling nazis, not "you are slightly right of Bernie"), then assumed veneer of political respectability without ever formally denouncing his previous talking points and started campaigning with the main premise of basically "I'll be better and less corrupt Czar of Russian empire". There is nothing liberal or democratic about this guy's political views.
> irrelevance in exile, just look at what happened with Kasparov's popularity inside Russia
Then again, Kasparov undermines Russia more efficiently while in exile than Navalny while inside (a prison no less). And Navalvy social media statements in exile might have been even more undermining Kasparov's.
Of course, undermining Russia with words might not help at all anyway...
Whatever Kasparov says or does in exile is quite irrelevant in Russia. This is how actual Russians think:
"He's not even in Russia, what does he know."
I don't know why Navalny returned to Russia after being poisoned and nearly killed by Putin's thugs, but it was a very brave thing to do. It makes no sense.
As close as I can tell, Russians tend to be very fatalistic. It's never been a happy place. It's cold, the state is corrupt, life is cheap. But people have a strong personal need for justice, to find those guilty and make them pay. But the state won't deliver justice, so you make a stand, and life is cheap so you take risks and double down. Hence Navalny, hence Litvinenko, hence all the journalists over the years who reported until they were thrown out windows or gunned down in public. Incredibly brave, I only wish the bravery led to real change rather than a neverending Greek tragedy.
It is because as a person you feel nothing else can be done. So you do the thing that you can do, knowing that probably it can't change much but... what else can you do? Doing nothing like everyone else? From the outside it looks like madness, but when you are that person it seems like keeping your integrity and being able to look in the mirror.
That's my point. He had put everything at risk because he knew it was the right thing to do. When choosing between doing what you think is best and what keeps you safe, people often choose the later.
At the day he returned, he released his grandest and most damning documentary about Putin's $1B palace and the ways it was financed. Maybe he hoped people would rise up and overturn Putin with him leading the masses.
I think he miscalculated the degree of cruelty he’ll experience. Also his move itself could be the trigger as if this cruelty would nit be there, then he would have been a hero winning, not a hero losing. Steps “had to be made”, sadly.
What has allowed the Russian state to treat him with such a degree of cruelty is the war with Ukraine. News of his arrest, imprisonment, and treatment in jail were overshadowed by those of another airstrike on a civilian population. Not to mention, it sent a clear message to internal opposition that those willing to act against the state would face not just legal hurdles but also tyranny and physical violence.
There are plenty of photos of russians bombing civilians, hospitals, Mariupol drama theater had "children" written in letters so big that they can be seen from space. Still bombed. Just few weeks ago a funeral was hit with a rocket, 50+ civilians dead. Let alone the constant attacks on civilian power and port infrastructure trying to freeze and famine not only Ukraine.
This is just a completely ignorant take that the Israelis are somehow worse than russians.
I'm just saying exactly that - anybody may now take two sets of photos and compare the amount of rampage over the time period to approximate the "DPS" done to civilian infrastructure.
Of course, I cannot prevent that person from being in denial due to cognitive dissonance.
My thoughts are that the press (and moreso twitter) has a very skewed way to report stuff. It is designed for entertainment value and not for rigor, and also to push a narrative.
Having two sets if inputs regarding somewhat similar events allows you to do a reality check. For example, you can compare civilian infrastructure damage footage from Gaza and that of Ukraine and arrive to some conclusions.
Because the Gaza footage is quite a mess. You will have hard times matching it with Ukraine footage. Sometimes, whole neighbourhoods of civilian high rises were levelled.
Meanwhile, obviously the carnage of civilians during the initial Gaza raid is also something that you will have hard time matching with anything happening in Ukraine.
Perhaps you will derive something different from these pictures, I just suggest doing that instead of going along with narratives.
> Because the Gaza footage is quite a mess. You will have hard times matching it with Ukraine footage. Sometimes, whole neighbourhoods of civilian high rises were levelled.
Russia has literally deleted entire Ukrainian cities off the map, so this is a very strange paragraph to right.
The only difference is in Ukraine the civilians were told to evacuate there homes when the Russians are near by, in Gaza they are told to stay in there homes by Hamas.
It is also much harder to evacuate people in Gaza.
> That is the difference. People in Gaza also have nowhere to go if they wanted.
Exactly, the difference isn't that in the Ukraine war that the Russians are being careful or precise, it's that the Ukrainian citizens can actually evacuate from the areas they are in.
As a fact, no, I don't.
The amount of carnage seen on Palestine photos and videos is not matched.
Of you read words written by press, you may get an impression that it is comparable. But you will struggle to find evidence backing it up. Because there is not.
Also you seem to be fixed on carnage inflicted to Palestine but not a word about the videos and images of beheadings and wanton murder of Israelis by the hamas terrorists. Why is that? Did not hamas unleash this round of violence by absolutely barbaric attacks?
As it was already noticed, it was not due to unannounced airstrikes in Bakhmut but due to ground offensive. Any civilians could and should have been evacuated by then, or at least took cover.
If we will seee ground offensive in Gaza, the picture will likely be the same but on larger scale. This is on top of air strikes damage, for which the population in these blocks could not prepare.
> As it was already noticed, it was not due to unannounced airstrikes in Bakhmut but due to ground offensive. Any civilians could and should have been evacuated by then, or at least took cover.
Sure,
So like the Dnipro apartment block strike that was from a Russian Kh-22 and flattened part of the building.
> As a fact, no, I don't. The amount of carnage seen on Palestine photos and videos is not matched.
You’re not looking very hard then.
The carnage is identical the Russians have literally leveled entire cities in Ukraine, I dare say the Russians have leveled an area that is overall larger then Gaza in its entirety.
This is before we get to the especially brutal parts of Russias war like when they launched an anti ship missile at a shopping centre.
> Launching "a missile" at a target pales in comparison with a row of apartment blocks levelled by air strikes.
It literally nearly levelled a shopping mall and killed 20+ civilians and injured close to 60.
So I guess the real question becomes, are civilian causalities okay or not?, if they are not okay then Russians indiscriminate targeting and killing of civilians in Ukraine is just as bad as Israels.
> And no, ground offensives are not the same. I hope we won't see those in Gaza - there is still chance.
So if Israel kills civilians in a ground offensive does that make it okay?.
Ground offensive makes it worse but it's already very bad. Worse than most of the stuff seen in the Russo-Ukrainian.
The question is actually a different one: about the collateral damage. But in the case of both Palestine and Israel, that question does not even enter the picture. Both sides show no discretion in killing one other.
You never answered the questions, are civilian causalities okay or not?.
Given how multiple cities in Ukraine look after Russias “ground offensive” I presume you’d be fine with Israel flattening Gaza in a ground offensive?.
Considering that’s exactly what Russia is doing to Ukraine.
> The question is actually a different one: about the collateral damage.
Or are you saying that if Ukraine used civilians as meat shields and forced them to stay in place that you would have a problem with what Russia is doing?.
Why do you write Israeli, when it was Gaza’s who bombed their hospital themselves. Like other autocracies tend to do to their citizens, by not valuing their lives.
Sorry, didn’t get that. Thanks for the clarification, I reread the comment you’ve replied to and it’s now clear them trying to whitewash terrorists (Russia and Hamas), while blaming the victims.
With a rocket made of water pipe and ammonia fertilizer? Obviously it would not do that kind of damage. We've seen impacts of stuff Hamas has and it can't do that.
The angle from which Israel doing this damage control reciprocity blaming is laughable.
I don't know who bombed the hospital in this case. But in the past Hamas showed very clearly they don't value the lives of their people at all and they used women and children as living shield on numerous occasions.
I don't know... they tried to kill him and they killed people before for less. Knowing some Russian and Soviet history it's pretty clear what mentality you're fighting.
While Navalny's courage in facing political persecution is commendable, it's important to contextualize his earlier views to understand him fully.
Before his imprisonment and prior to the escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, Navalny held positions that some might describe as nationalistic. For example, his stance on Crimea has been ambivalent, with statements that sometimes tacitly accept Russia's annexation of the region.
Navalny has a history of ethnocentric comments and has been involved in nationalist rallies in Russia. This complicates the narrative that he is solely a liberal figure fighting for democracy.
He opposes Putin's regime, but his political ideology doesn't necessarily align with values of international law, human rights, and economic freedoms.
As much as what you say is factually accurate, I think it's important to contextualize within the broader Russian consciousness.. the same could be said about almost any American. Just as Americans have certain exceptionalism all the way down to their bones, Russia is similar. The idea that a Russian politician wouldn't at times speak in ways that harken back to that core should not be used as something that dismisses a man of incredible courage who is truly exceptional within a body politic of others that are perennially silent. I've seen this trope before and believe it comes from a naive perspective. In order to have any chance of successfully rallying of people you do need to appeal to some of their base instincts
> In order to have any chance of successfully rallying of people you do need
> to appeal to some of their base instincts
I understand your point about the role of nationalism in Russian politics. However, it's crucial for us in the proverbial "West" to have a nuanced understanding of Navalny, because it's too easy to equate "political victimhood" == "purity of intentions".
I'm not questioning his courage or opposition to Putin; my aim is to highlight that his political ideology isn't straightforward.
Should he unexpectedly assume presidency, his past statements make it unclear whether he'd reverse Russia's actions in Ukraine, (but there would be a chance).
It might have been a practical decision too. I guess he calculated that if they want to get to him they'd get to him pretty much anywhere on the planet and still maintain deniability. So might as well go back.
You do know his political stance, right? https://twitter.com/krides/status/1509841011295592450 Do you also have huge respect for Prigozhin for flying back to Moscow after agreeing to stop the revolt? Same energy.
My downstairs neighbour believes in crystals. Which is fine because she's not in a position to force me to use crystals, or the teaching of crystals as a healing method in schools (etc).
Pluralism can be valuable even if all the participants are reprehensible. Ideally they compete each other to a standstill, allowing separation of powers and human rights to gain a foothold.
That said western media does have the habit of glossing over the actual platform of any dictators opposition, see for instance the breathless adoration the Dalai Lama gets.
The official version spread by the propaganda is that his lawyers did not only what lawyers should do, but also helped him pass letters from the jail to the outside world and thus control his "terrorist" organization (Anti-Corruption Foundation). This counts as complicity and direct participation in the deeds of a "terrorist" organization.
I'm surprised he was able to make such statements for this long.
I genuinely wonder why his captors even continue to let him live, when it seems like any post-2022 civil protest in Russia can and will be brutally repressed.
Putin is 71 and doesn’t look particularly healthy. It’s not clear that he has any strong successor, nor that he would leave such a successor alive if there was one. His government is strained to the breaking point and couldn’t fight off an internal military attack by one of his lieutenants, to the point where they almost reached Moscow in a few hours. When he dies, it seems likely that the country will fall to pieces as different factions try to gain power. Because of the way Putin has suppressed the opposition, Navalny is one of the only people who has any popular legitimacy in that environment. I still think it’s very unlikely he makes it, but prisoner to leader isn’t unheard of.
If he was making such statements (I'm not following this), does that mean that his lawyers were indeed being used by him to pass letters and that this is not propaganda?
Russian regime is strangely obsessed with following some procedure and complying to some law, even if it sounds like a joke. In this case they just found the way to legally stop publication of his statements and what they say is true if you accept their narrative as a whole. Still it is just propaganda and lie, because it is based on highly illegal (unconstitutional) foundation. The laws that they passed, the judicial process - everything is rotten to the roots.
While formally you are correct and Russian law makes distinction between terrorism and extremism, it is wrong to equate it to the Western legal framework. Yes, at the very abstract level both Russia and Western countries have a legal system based on some formal procedure. That’s also where the commonality ends. The laws used to incarcerate Navalny and condemn his organization were either unconstitutional or applied in an unconstitutional way. One unlawful decision does not make subsequent decisions based on it lawful, it just makes them look like ones. Independent court could have found that FBK is a legal organization and thus his lawyers did not actually break the law and we should not have spoken about „consequences“.
I would be worried for poor, poor putin if Russia didn't do the "decedent, satanic, LGBT, degenerate" western concept called arresting someone for breaking the law as somone from west I can now rest easy knowing thanks to your comment, that indeed Russia does indeed practice this.
Speaking about manipulation devices, it was not Navalny who sent them to jail. And speaking about manipulation devices this is still Russian regime taking down opponents rather then the organization or layers doing anything illegal or bad.
It was their breaking the law that sent them to jail.
> And speaking about manipulation devices this is still Russian regime taking down opponents rather then the organization or layers doing anything illegal or bad.
> It was their breaking the law that sent them to jail.
Nah. Highly political and corrupt system did. Lets not lie about this. Nothing to do with breaking the law. Everything to do with being vocal opposition.
The decision to designate FBK as extremist organization was illegal. The due process was not followed, prosecutors failed to present any evidence etc. The law on extremism which was used in this case is itself probably unconstitutional regardless of the decisions of Constitutional Court which lost its independence and its mind long ago. By extension any charges against lawyers because of their support of Navalny and FBK should be considered unlawful. They did not break the law by supporting this organization regardless of the opinion of Russian legal system.
Its standard bot behaviour.
Acknowledge.
Distract.
Relativize.
What remains is a fog, the uncertainty about there being truth at all.
Assange should not be in prison.
But the law has not decayed in the west to the point, were its non-existant anymore, power-mad anarchy dancing naked but a paper-loincloth in the streets ala russia.
The should free assange, just to silence these bots.
The post is about Russia and how they've now have arrested a lawyer because he's representing navalni.
So then point to be where the UK is part of Russia, or maybe just maybe we should hold the topic of "unfairly arrested" where we can talk all day long about assange, navalni or anyone else.
Besides assange is no lawyer, a better whataboutism would be trumps lawyers who are either arrested have charges against them.
That would make sense if you wanted to sow discord on the right. The post here does so for those that lean left. All of the above serve to weaken a sense that there's a difference between the autocratic China-Russia axis and the west.
My main point was to remind that we too are at risk of suffering the same kind of authoritarianism we point our fingers to. Russia is currently being very blatant in how it uses trumped up charges to make an example of someone and discourage further opposition, but I felt obligated to remind everyone that they’re not the only ones.
The West does it less, and it does it more subtly, but everywhere I look (mostly Europe) there’s a substantial increase in the use of authoritarian practices. We’re not immune to full blown authoritarianism making a come back.
Pointing out hypocrisy is not "whataboutism" it's just simply pointing out hypocrisy.
This "whataboutism" was invented as a way to avoid uncomfortable comparisons, you can find a lot of stories in the west where if you replace Countryname with Russia and the story would sound plausible, here you go: "Russian whistleblower who uncovered that the Russian government spied on all of its people has fled to the US to avoid being imprisoned in Russia", talking about Snowden of course.
Which is why I asked, what does Julian Assange unfair arrest have to do with Russia, as this was and still is the topic of this thread, not a general discussion about unfair arrests.
And further more, there's nothing stopping you or anyone else from opening a thread here and now where we can discuss the topic of unfair arrests.
>This "whataboutism" was invented as a way to avoid uncomfortable comparisons
If I invented the term "whatboutism" I would've been proud how certain people over-dramatize it's invention.
Whataboutism is just a more proper word for the logical fallacy "Tu quoque" or appeal to hypocrisy, which is used to divert attention away from the original specific topic and instead try and force the topic to either be as broad and inconsequential as possible or to make us focus on this 'hypocrite' to avert attention away from the original specific topic.
>you can find a lot of stories in the west where if you replace Countryname with Russia and the story would sound plausible
The assertion that replacing one country's name with another creates a "plausible" story is just overly reductive.
It says nothing about the context nor the specific situations at hand, you're effectively flipping the concern at hand.
Where the origin of the story is more important than the actual evidence at hand.
Because this website bypasses paywalls and loginwalls - it has accounts for a lot of the social media websites, so you don't see a generic "Login to see this page" but the actual contents.
How much popular support does Navalny have in Russia?
(I realize Russia is a banana republic and Navalny is a hero but does he actually represent something that has wide support in Russia? From the few Russians I have talked to, they seems supportive of Putin despite everything.)
It may be unusual or surprising even but I don't think it matters who has popular support in Russia - Russians have lost the minimum agency they had in the mid 90s. There was a failed attempt to regain it in 2011 but it was crushed.
He is largely irrelevant now. He was significantly popular, but there is a combination of:
1. Many of his most fervent followers fleeing the country in February or September 2022.
2. His team being useless and consisting of people of very questionable loyalty (the question remains why he let them all in), and in many cases under their own brands.
3. Overall switch from the anti-corruption discourse towards different set of topics, such as war, etc - where he does not have much relevance.
4. Him being AFK (not to blame him for that).
5. His organization FBK now resides abroad, burning grant money and not doing anything useful for Russian residents.
On top of that, the guy is literally a racist, if anyone cares to explore his past. But he’s all hero these days, because he wants to be in charge of Russian regime instead of Putin. He’s portrayed as a fighter for freedom, while actually right now, any Ukrainian soldier does more to protect the values of democracy. By literally fighting tooth and nail for it. But nobody seems to care about a Ukrainian soldier as much as they care about just one person from Russia, isn’t it?
Was waiting for this comment. Yes he did (have to) ally with nationalists in the past. He did say negative things about migrants. Nevertheless, he stated multiple times since then that it's not his views anymore.
Speaking of racism and nationalism, let's be honest Euromaidan in 2014 would never succeed without the support of the Right Sector. This type of brutal force was missing in Belarus 2020 protests.
It still have support from both a nationalist right and an internationalist left. Let's not forget the only anarchist regime that beat out an Army was Ukrainian, and that has a certain appeal to the left. I have three friends and I know that a complete antifa cell went there (some came back, war seems terrible even if you 'just' want to volonteer at a hospital). Regardless, it's followed by the entire political spectrum.
He was hoping to get elected. You need to have broad popular support to get elected (see Trump), hence the "views".
Some time later it became apparent that he is not going to be elected and elections will not be the thing, so the new plan was getting paid by State Dept NGOs, with corresponding change to "views".
My personal take on Navalny is that he mostly was a charismatic opportunist, but eventually that lured him in a trap.
>But nobody seems to care about a Ukrainian soldier as much as they care about just one person from Russia, isn’t it?
Ukrainians should be grateful for support they get and dramatically reduce sense of entitlement. US provided more material support to Ukraine in the last year than to any other country in history. Constant whining becomes tedious and defense of the democracy argument is questionable.
I believe it does not represent the actual state of affairs.
Firstly, many people wouldn't say they'd vote for Navalny -- that's just against the self-preservation instincts.
Secondly, there are many people who are not "in love" with Navalny, his team and personal views, but still think he'd be a much better president than Putin.
I'd personally estimate the count of people here (in Russia) that are neutral/neutral-positive/positive about Navalny at 15-25%. And much higher at hightech giants and top univesities at Moscow/Saint-Petersburg.
Thanks, the link provided didn't work for me, but I forgot I've twitter and other online services redirected through libredirect and many of its endpoint stopped working a while ago. My fault.
Plenty of other candidates are spoilers that add legitimacy to elections. They may have some popular support, but time to time they make statements or do something that portrays them as clowns to the majority, reducing their electoral base and making them not dangerous to Putin.
I'm sure the FSB has the likes of Naryshin, Patrushev or Bortnikov up their sleeve with Putin out of the picture. Putin was virtually unknown when he was first appoined as president. Win a Chechen war by throwing countless human and material resources at it, then you're wildly popular. If you come to think about it, Russia has only gained territories during Putin's leadership.
The political landscape in Russia is basically this: United Russia, commies and ultranationalists. All of these are pro war with the exception of a single party with a single member in the Duma, which opposes the war due to economic reasons.
I remember watching a documentary about Navalny (was it on Netflix?). The positive thing is that he is against Putin. The negative thing (imho) is that he is a 'fake' person, proper salesman, tells you what YOU want to hear/what sells and not his original ideas. He changed ideas and opinions too much, too fast in the past. He started out making crappy videos on YT about various topics. If he wouldn't oppose Putin he would be a very low-yield <insert name of some youtube comentator-troll>.
Extremely little. His a nationalist (has argued for occupation of Crimea, genocide in Georgia, "cleansing" russia of non-whites, etc) that is irrelevant in Russia and only popular abroad in the west with people that don't speak Russian and don't know his actual nationalistic positions.
In the beginning of attack on Ukraine I used to think Putin's days are numbered and finally this will be the end of him. But then I realised how it turned around for Bashar and how he has bounced back and is almost back to the path of as things were. Compared to him Putin is maybe a hundred times or more well placed to stay on.
The only real step 1 — unless you want to get into a philosophical argument about the foundation of knowledge and the Münchhausen trilemma — is "get a law degree", which for most people is much too hard.
The closest that nerds like me can do is to watch another lawyer explain what Trump's lawyers did wrong, and hope that YouTube isn't just one giant conspiracy by The Man (and while I have reasons for trusting this channel specifically, I do not trust YouTube collectively): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lhy5Y8xVHS0
(This is, I think, further from a law degree than "watching a 25 minute video about Excel" is from "senior software engineer").
Yeah, I do wonder as well, how come Trump can't hire better lawyers? Wait, I'm getting a weird brain wave. Could it be because any lawyer representing Trump will get targetted, disbarred and destroyed? No, that can't be it, it must be something else.
Also, what Man? I have no idea who that guy is, it's enough that he's a Trump hater, you don't need any conspiracy, jsut the one guy who doesn't like Trump. You don't like Trump, so you went and google for whatever link you could paste here as "proof" and that was it, that was your process. Youtube-lawyer-guy's process doesn't necessarily need to be much better than that.
Plus I asked you how can you tell the difference between "actual crime" and a political witch hunt. You haven't answered. Do you think Navalny's lawyers won't be found guilty with all the trimmings in a court of law? Do tell me how would you explain the difference to the proverbial just-landed-alien.
> Wait, I'm getting a weird brain wave. Could it be because any lawyer representing Trump will get targetted, disbarred and destroyed?
"Any" is false, therefore the question yields false. I'd suggest watching the video again, but I assume that was too long for you — if so, (1) I recommend the "speed" button as this guy is quite watchable at double speed, and (2) it's a tier list and it starts that list with the most competent ones, who are all counter-examples to your premise because they're not in trouble.
Before the list, he basically asks your question but phrased differently.
> Also, what Man? I have no idea who that guy is, it's enough that he's a Trump hater, you don't need any conspiracy, jsut the one guy who doesn't like Trump.
(1) Are you unfamiliar with the phrase "The Man"? (2) Needs a lot more than one person as there are a multiple cases in multiple states, and it needs a judge/jury to agree with the prosecution.
> You don't like Trump, so you went and google for whatever link you could paste here as "proof" and that was it, that was your process
Nope, I was already familiar with this specific lawyer for the way he explains other legal topics. I just looked him up directly to see what he had to say on this topic. Hence why I wrote in the previous comment "I have reasons for trusting this channel specifically, I do not trust YouTube collectively".
> Plus I asked you how can you tell the difference between "actual crime" and a political witch hunt.
The important thing about a witch hunt, the defining characteristic even, is the lack of any objective evidence.
The important thing about a successful prosecution under the current systems in most of the world, is the presence of evidence.
In the case of Trump's lawyers, the ones who got into trouble did so by signing their name to untrue statements made under oath, emailing conspiratorial messages from their (other) employer's workplace that they then sued to keep secret, recording themselves on CCTV or dictaphones, etc. — all stuff with a surprisingly clear trail of evidence.
(Not germane to the point, but contrary to what you think you asked, it didn't seem like you were asking «how can you tell the difference between "actual crime" and "a political witch hunt"» but rather between "crime" and "a dictator looking for any excuse to throw their enemies away", which is a very much harder pair of things to differentiate because any competent dictator would just rewrite the rules of the game so they always win — "lawful evil" in D&D terms, whereas the things that are troubling Trump's lawyers are only troubling the specific lawyers that appear to be missing the "lawful" part of the alignment, which is kinda a big deal for a job that has "law" right there in the name).
Sure. You'll find plenty of evidence for Navalny's lawyers as well, funny how that works. You still haven't told me how you're going to tell them apart. I mean, I know: You start with the conclusion and work back from there, so that's easy and clean.
Also, have you heard of selective enforcement? Does it not worry you at all to see the one side consistently getting prosecuted and persecuted and the other one not at all? Do you think you're always going to be on the right side?
I don't know man, you are watching the government of the USA going after its main political opponent, no holds barred, even after his lawyers (which of course is pour encourager les autres don't play coy), and you're taking it very well, like "Yes, this is what democracy feels like, love it". And the sight of literally Putin doing literally the same thing doesn't trigger the least amount of thought in your mind. It's all going great, yes. Beautiful.
> The only real step 1 — unless you want to get into a philosophical argument about the foundation of knowledge and the Münchhausen trilemma — is "get a law degree", which for most people is much too hard.
Go and do the thing. I'm serious, if you want to make this a real actual argument and not just two random nerds locking horns on the internet (which I'm not interested in so you'd have to find a real actual lawyer to spar with after getting that degree), that's the only way — there is no other.
> Also, have you heard of selective enforcement? Does it not worry you at all to see the one side consistently getting prosecuted and persecuted and the other one not at all? Do you think you're always going to be on the right side?
(This is particularly poignant to me, as a British person, because of the context of the Human Rights Act 1998 and its use in polemics during half the discussion about Brexit even though technically it's separate: I do not trust any power that says "trust me").
You however (unless you want to deny this now?) give every indication of sincerely appearing to believe that anyone on Team Trump can only be arrested falsely, not honestly.
As for Navalny’s lawyers? If they're guilty or not? You may not have seen the final edit to the comment where I made a D&D comparison — I don't know if they're guilty of "real" crimes, nor if they're even guilty of "laws passed by Putin to lock up troublemakers", but those two states are almost indistinguishable without being a constitutional law expert, and I've been (attempting to be) clear on the difficulty there from your first direct response to me. (Discuss: Is {Putin|Trump} "lawful evil" or "chaotic"?)
I've seen quite a few articles on HN relating to free speech issues, both domestic stories in the US and abroad. I made one such submission about my home state South Australia and it was fine.
I feel like freedom and self-autonomy form part of the ethos of a hacker, but hell I might be wrong.
So the original comment that stated that this kind of news are out of hacker news suggested topics (as there’s nothing techie here, and it’s all political) gotten removed. I wonder why. I agree it’s entirely irrelevant to the subject of the forum.
Yeah. But he was also over a decade in jail without a trial.
Don't get me worng: The state of justice here is certainly better than in Russia, but we should give ourselves the same scrutiny we give to the Russians. Closing our eyes when we do obvious unlawful things is bad for our rule of law and makes us look like hypocrites when we (rightfully) point out injustices elsewhere.
On the other hand, not even his fellow journalists do anything... They could at least do a weekly article, "assange is still in jail", because in reality, you're either "just a reporter" (who writes articles about what someone, usually from the government, said) or you could actually do some meaningful investigative work, and end up like him. I know that corporate mainstream media reports just what their owners want them to report, but even kevin mitnick had more media support and individuals asking hard questions than assange has now.
If I'd been the editor of the Guardian newspaper on the day the British security services ordered the destruction of the hard drive with the Snowden archives, I would've made the next day's front page almost fully blacked-out, except for perhaps a handful of words across the whole thing reading:
But Snowden still comes across as one of the "good guys", someone who was expecting to get hurt and did his thing anyway because it was the right thing to do, whereas Assange… comes across wanting to be the headline rather than be responsible for the headline.
Well, came across; I've only heard statements about him or on his behalf since he left the embassy, not from his own mouth. But the old reputation stuck.
In my opinion, the major difference between Assange and Snowden is the respective threats they represent: Snowden was a one and done deal. Get the stuff out, blow the whistle, done. Worst case someone might be encouraged to imitate him.
Wikileaks, and Assange as its figurehead, are a different deal. They enable whistleblowing, and as journalists they can report over and over again. Whistleblowers typically whistle only once. Journalists can re-whistle constantly.
Most importantly though, journalists who actually protect their sources (hopefully that’s a tautology) can forward illegally obtained information and shield their sources from any legal repercussions. Kind of the whole point of source protection, but even Western governments don’t like whistleblowers evading the law. They’d rather know who blew the whistle, just to make sure it’s never blown inappropriately. Because inappropriately blown whistles are so much worse than inappropriately unblown whistles I guess?
Let's be honest, unlike Snowden, Assange really come as an asshole, and that really undermined the public opinion.
I know the 'rape' bit was probably political, but he seems like the type of guy who would totally do that, and I think he actually did considering his lawyer responses. The fact that the woman brought it to court however, that's the point that is suspicious to me. A consequent fraction (at least 10% imho) of the male population could be condemned for the same stuff, dirty pigs. And the fact that it was a successful trial. My sister was actually raped by her employer, and advices from both the police and lawyers were "you can't bring that to court, it's a 'he said she said' situation, you should just make a report and 'hope another girl get raped'" (rough translation of what the 'helpful' policeman said).
> we should give ourselves the same scrutiny we give to the Russians
Absolutely. I will never be satisfied with any punishments or justice system, unless and until that system cannot be abused — if it can be used against Team Us by Team Them when Team Them are next in power, it had better be because Team Us actually did something wrong. Even if Team Them today won't abuse the system, it's just waiting for trouble.
That said:
> Yeah. But he was also over a decade in jail without a trial.
He spent most of that decade hiding from an extradition, and is currently refused bail on the grounds that last time he was given it, he jumped. That's very different in important ways.
Now, as demonstrated by the fact that we collectively did, we can spend the entirety of that duration arguing:
(1) if the things he was accused of doing were in fact crimes (they were, but some people at the time were claiming they weren't).
(2) if the women who made the accusations were secret US government plants — they could be, but I doubt based on statements attributed to one of the accusers communicating with the Swedish prosecutor even after Assange had been ejected from the embassy.
(3) if the legal system had pressure put on it to keep him pinned down in one place for the sake of the US investigation — I suspect yes, albeit only at the first stage: the reason I think pressure was put upon the system is that sexual offences are notoriously difficult to prove and accusations normally don't go anywhere, the reason I think "only the first stage" is that he'd already claimed asylum before it got very far. Furthermore, the investigation was re-opened (briefly) after Assange had been ejected from the embassy and the new extradition request from the USA, and the combination is stupid, which is suggestive without being proof (after all, governments do stupid things all the time).
(4) and also if he even did the things he was accused of — I lean towards thinking he did, because (a) sexual offences happen way more than most people realise, and (b) all the people who, upon hearing of the nature of the allegation, argued #1 in the negative, saying something along the lines of "surely that can't be a crime!" or "this is merely rude, not criminal", neither of which is the standard of evidence used in a court case, hence the difficulty of proof that is my reason for thinking pressure was put on the system in #3.
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Despite all that, the current extradition process to the USA sounds suspect, at the very least.
No, he's someone who is being detained just to make a point and discourage others. Had he really known something of vital importance about the US or any other allied country national security, he'd have been tortured 5 minutes after his arrest.
He was initially detained for extradition to Sweden on sexual offence charges. The security on that was so light he was able to skip his (expensive, donor-paid) bail.
The intelligence people were annoyed with him back then, hence all the claims of even that arrest being "a conspiracy" sounding at least slightly plausible, and yet, even then, they were demonstrably so uninterested that he could walk to an embassy and claim asylum.
He has been denied bail now because he skipped bail then and when doing so specifically said his reason was not wanting to end up in the country who now wants to extradite him.
And to be blunt, saying "as I am afraid of being extradited to the USA, I want to remain in a country that has a history of extraditing people to the USA rather than be extradited to a different country that has a slightly lesser reputation for the same" was one of the things that a decade ago made me think he was fleeing justice for the sexual offences rather than being sincere in (what ought to have been a legitimate) fear of the USA.
Wasn’t there a way for Sweden to promise him not to extradite him to the US?
I’ve heard he wasn’t even heard by Swedish justice, even though he offered to be heard remotely (from England), and such a thing was done in similar cases.
Solving one or the other would have showed with much more certainty whether he was actually trying to flee the sexual charges or not. Though perhaps the Swedish prosecutor just wanted to maximise the chances of having him in Swedish custody.
So I had to google "trump lawyer arrested" and read that she pleaded guilty to "racketeering, conspiracy to commit election fraud, conspiracy to commit computer theft, trespassing and invasion of privacy, and conspiracy to defraud the state." Wow. Quite a list.
They tried to murder him and after spending time in a German hospital he decided to go back knowing that they'll imprison him or try to kill him again.