"Russia Without Putin!"
"We have got used to things like this - it seems every time there is a mass demonstration against the government our site is taken down. The hackers play to the benefit of the authorities." Deputy Editor Vitaly Yaroshevsky, Novaya Gazeta
Nor is his newspaper the only media source that has been impacted. At least two pther media outlets that have been critical of the Kremlin have had their websites interfered with through a "denial of service". This is covert, but obvious press censorship by the state. Russia has become skilled at this kind of cyberwarfare as Estonia discovered when all its Internet and government sites were blacked out in a difference of opinion with Russia years ago.
Now it's an internal matter. Not quite the unsolved assassinations of Russian journalists reporting on the corruption of Vladimir Putin's government in Chechnya and closer to home central, but certainly a move that goes beyond authoritarian into the territory of dictatorship. If Stalin had to contend with the Internet in his time he would have summarily threatened its survival in the Soviet Union; as it is he contented himself with other more direct brutal measures to stifle dissent.
Over 100,000 people came out to rally in solidarity against the resumption of Vladimir Putin to the presidency of Russia. The vote outcome that was purportedly legitimate that gave the appearance of the Russian public approving heartily of the seat exchange in the Kremlin between Putin and Medvedev in their game of revolving exchange of the presidency and premiership in an obvious ploy to maintain a Putinized Russia has not found favour in liberal-minded young Russians.
Despite the perversion of justice that has made a prolonged prisoner of another former opposition to Putin's reign with the imprisonment and the prolongation of that incarceration of oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, this new contingent of protest leaders seem comfortable in defying the authority of President Putin, who seems to be losing patience, hoping the protests will die away, while they do not.
"More than 100,000 people have come out today in a rebuke to this repression. This is our answer to the crooks and thieves - we are not afraid", boasted leftist leader Sergei Udaltsov. And so the protesters against the "stolen" March presidential elections chant the defiant "Russia without Putin!", along with "Putin is a thief!", with seemingly little fear of retribution.
The police estimated the opposition crowd at a conservative 20,000 in number. Unsurprisingly, the protest organizers gave an estimate of between 70,000 and 100,000 people, and detached observers seem to agree with the organizers' estimate. "Those who fought are beyond being scared. Let those behind the red-toothed walls of the Kremlin be scared", said a former Soviet army veteran, wearing his Afghan battle medals.
Labels: Conflict, Cyberwarfare, Political Realities, Russia, Security, Social-Cultural Deviations
posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, June 13, 2012
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