Totalitarismo sob o véu da democracia
Publicado por Rui Passos Rocha em Novembro 26, 2007
«Russian riot police beat opposition activists yesterday and detained nearly 200 people at protest rallies against President Vladimir Putin a week before the country’s parliamentary election. Riot police in St. Petersburg, Russia’s second city and Mr. Putin’s home town, detained Boris Nemtsov and Nikita Belykh, leaders of the Union of Right Forces (SPS) party who are both running in the Dec. 2 election. They were later released. The protests came a day after police detained opposition leader and former world chess champion Garry Kasparov in Moscow — a move the United States condemned yesterday as part of “aggressive tactics” by authorities.» [1]
«Os EUA exprimiram em comunicado a sua preocupação face à detenção de vários membros da oposição russa, ontem e no sábado, em Moscovo e em Sampetersburgo. A mesma inquietação manifestou o Conselho da Europa, através do seu secretário-geral, Terry Davis, que especificou os casos dos opositores Gerry Kasparov e Boris Nemtsov. Este último, um liberal, foi ontem libertado após ser interpelado pela polícia por participar numa manifestação não autorizada na cidade de Sampetersburgo. Kasparov, antigo campeão mundial de xadrez e líder do movimento Outra Rússia, permanece sob detenção. “Estou muito preocupado com as detenções de Kasparov e Nemtsov e dos seus simpatizantes em Moscovo e em Sampetersburgo”, disse Davis, em comunicado citado pela AFP. O responsável lembrou que a Rússia é membro do Conselho da Europa e comprometeu-se a respeitar a Convenção Europeia dos Direitos do Homem, a qual, sublinhou Davis, “garante a liberdade de reunião e a liberdade de expressão”.» [2]
«Critiqué par l’Occident pour la répression de marches d’opposition ce week-end, le président Vladimir Poutine a riposté lundi à Saint-Pétersbourg en accusant Washington et l’OSCE de vouloir “délégitimer” les législatives russes du 2 décembre. Interrogé lors d’un déplacement dans sa ville natale (nord-ouest) par un jeune militant pro-Kremlin sur l’annulation par le principal groupe d’observateurs de l’OSCE (BIDDH) de sa mission en Russie, M. Poutine a assuré qu’elle avait été “prise sur la recommandation du département d’Etat américain”. “Nous allons prendre cela en compte dans nos relations inter-étatiques”, a-t-il menacé. “L’objectif est de délégitimer les élections mais ils n’atteindront pas ce but. Les élections se passeront dans le cadre de la loi”, a-t-il poursuivi. L’OSCE, la principale autorité de surveillance des élections en Europe, a annulé le 16 novembre la mission de 70 observateurs de son Bureau des institutions démocratiques et des droits de l’Homme (BIDDH) pour les législatives russes, dénonçant un manque de coopération de Moscou. Les Etats-Unis ont apporté leur soutien à cette décision, qualifiant d’”extrêmement regrettables” les obstacles érigés par les autorités russes à l’encontre des observateurs internationaux.» [3]
«On Wednesday, Farid Babayev–the head of the Yabloko party ticket in Dagestan was shot at the entrance of his apartment building. Babayev, a human rights activist and fierce critic of the United Russia party and local authorities, died on Saturday. That same day, Garry Kasparov, one of the leaders of the opposition coalition Other Russia, was arrested in Moscow and sentenced to five days in jail for leading an unsanctioned street march on Russia’s Central Election Commission. (City officials had given the coalition permission to hold a rally but not a march.) The Kremlin’s tightening grip on the media, especially national and local television, and authorities’ harassment of opposition parties, led Yabloko leader Grigory Yavlinsky to draw a parallel between Putin’s Russia and Soviet Russia. “Russia stands on the threshold of the restoration of Soviet-style single-party rule.” On the eve of elections, there has been an intensification of attacks on what remains of Russia’s free press. On November 9, Russian authorities shut down one of the country’s few remaining independent newspapers– the Samara edition of Novaya Gazeta. The pretext provided by authorities was cynical and hypocritical: in a country which leads when it comes to intellectual piracy, the police confiscated the paper’s last remaining computer (the others were seized in a raid last spring) and indicted its editor for allegedly using a counterfeit version of Microsoft software.» [4]
