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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: The Russian Gulags never went away
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Justinian
Shipmate
# 5357
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Posted
I've read Nadezhda Tolokonnikova's account of why she's on hunger strike and feel physically sick. That alone should be (but won't be) enough to take the Olympics off these barbarians. And anything I say about Patriarch Kyrill's response to the last time genuine Christianity was preached in that chapel of his wouldn't be harsh enough.
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My real name consists of just four letters, but in billions of combinations.
Eudaimonaic Laughter - my blog.
Posts: 3926 | From: The Sea Coast of Bohemia | Registered: Dec 2003
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
Wow. That was horrible.
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Tubbs
Miss Congeniality
# 440
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Wow. That was horrible.
What you said. Bloody hell ... ![[Votive]](graemlins/votive.gif)
Tubbs
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"It's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than open it up and remove all doubt" - Dennis Thatcher. My blog. Decide for yourself which I am
Posts: 12701 | From: Someplace strange | Registered: Jun 2001
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
Posts: 8913 | From: Page 28 | Registered: May 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
I've read many books about the gulag system, and the thread title is quite right. This is just more of the same.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
I wish I were more surprised. ![[Disappointed]](graemlins/disappointed.gif) ![[Help]](graemlins/help.gif)
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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luvanddaisies
the'fun'in'fundie'™
# 5761
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Posted
This from Amnesty International
quote:
“The prison administration claimed that Nadezhda Tolokonnikova had been placed in isolation for her own protection, but we are concerned this could be yet another punishment for demanding that her own rights and the rights of other inmates are respected. What authorities should do is investigate the allegations she made”
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"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." (Mark Twain)
Posts: 3711 | From: all at sea. | Registered: Apr 2004
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Jahlove
Tied to the mast
# 10290
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Posted
. However, my main and most important grievance is bigger than any one of these. It is that the colony administration prevents any complaints or claims regarding conditions at PC-14 from leaving colony walls by the harshest means available. The administration forces people to remain silent. It does not scorn stooping to the very lowest and cruelest means to this end. All of the other problems come from this one — the increased quotas, the 16-hour work day, and so on. The administration feels untouchable; it heedlessly oppresses prisoners with growing severity. I couldn't understand why everyone kept silent until I found myself faced with the avalanche of obstacles that falls on the prisoner who decides to speak out. Complaints simply do not leave the prison. The only chance is to complain through a lawyer or relatives. The administration, petty and vengeful, will meanwhile use all of its mechanisms for putting pressure on the prisoner so she will see that her complaints will not help anyone, but only make thing worse. They use collective punishment: you complain there's no hot water, and they turn it off entirely.
So how did this letter get out?
If via "lawyers or relatives", why did Tolokonnikova choose to do so even knowing that there would be a penalty on other people, her fellow inmates - did she ask them if they were willing to accept that? She herself states that she is privileged because of her fame:
"If you weren't Tolokonnikova, you would have had the shit kicked out of you a long time ago," say fellow prisoners with close ties to the administration."
Her facebook account is active - could be someone else operating it of course.
If the same account of hard labour had been posted by someone imprisoned for "right-wing" beliefs/demos, any coverage it may have garnered would have got a collective "LIKE" from those denouncing Tolokonnikova's prison experience.
There are so many lies and trickery in this world today; all reportage should be questioned and critiqued not given an automatic "pass" because it labels itself "right-wing" or "left-wing".
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
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“Sing like no one's listening, love like you've never been hurt, dance like nobody's watching, and live like its heaven on earth.” - Mark Twain
Posts: 6477 | From: Alice's Restaurant (UK Franchise) | Registered: Sep 2005
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
Jahlove: If via "lawyers or relatives", why did Tolokonnikova choose to do so even knowing that there would be a penalty on other people, her fellow inmates - did she ask them if they were willing to accept that?
If the other inmates were punished because of this, she wasn't the one who inflicted this punishment.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jahlove:
So how did this letter get out?
I was wondering that. How would she have been able to write an open letter - indeed one as long as that, without being discovered - and get it out of a place like that?
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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ThunderBunk
Stone cold idiot
# 15579
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Posted
Isolated incompetence should not necessarily make one discount the existence of persecution. After all, the fact that one small element slips does not prove that all the rest of the allegations are false, merely that no system is entirely infallible. And, of course, once such a public slip has occurred it is far less likely that future slips will occur such that the outside world gets to hear about the consequences.
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Currently mostly furious, and occasionally foolish. Normal service may resume eventually. Or it may not. And remember children, "feiern ist wichtig".
Foolish, potentially deranged witterings
Posts: 2208 | From: Norwich | Registered: Apr 2010
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
One small element perhaps...
If you're working from dawn to midnight every day, given hardly any food and monitored much of the time, how do you find the time or energy to write something as long as this?
Where do you get the resources? They aren't going to provide you with the materials to write a cheery letter home each week, and if they did it would be heavily censored. They probably don't also provide free internet access.
How would you conceal something this lengthy and ensure that nobody, at any time, spotted you writing it - where would you be able to go to be alone to do this?
How would you get it out of the camp?
I'm not doubting that persecution goes on in various parts of the world but I would be very careful about immediately responding to a story like this with a cry of "Something must be done!" without verifying anything. The more extreme and urgent the claim the more the need to be sure that it is genuine and originates from the source it claims to be from. There are too many unanswered questions on this one for me to join in the general cry of "This is awful". On the face of it, it is. But so are many of the stories coming out of Syria, and we still don't know who was responsible for the chemical attack in Damascus, only that somebody did it.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
The letter contains inference she receives slightly better treatment. She is a high profile prisoner.
But the prison she is Russian, no? For the proper incentive, one could have an elephant for a pet.
lilBuddha not completely giving in to skepticism.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
On the face of it, it is. But so are many of the stories coming out of Syria, and we still don't know who was responsible for the chemical attack in Damascus, only that somebody did it.
Really?! I thought it was generally understood that one of two parties were responsible for the attack, one of which is capable of launching it and one which isn't...
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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QLib
Bad Example
# 43
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
If you're working from dawn to midnight every day, given hardly any food and monitored much of the time, how do you find the time or energy to write something as long as this?
Where do you get the resources? They aren't going to provide you with the materials to write a cheery letter home each week, and if they did it would be heavily censored. They probably don't also provide free internet access.
It might not literally be a letter. I dare say it might have been possible to make a recording of some kind. A little bribery goes a long way.
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Tradition is the handing down of the flame, not the worship of the ashes Gustav Mahler.
Posts: 8913 | From: Page 28 | Registered: May 2001
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
This thread came to mind yesterday afternoon when the Belarus Free Theatre, an exiled theatre group banned in Belarus and driven underground there, performed King Lear at the Globe in Belarussian streamed live to Belarus. This final performance ended the curtain calls with an impassioned plea for the regime in Belarus to change and allow freedoms of expression and rights to political prisoners in both English and Belarussian.
Apparently, saying "Long Live Belarus" in Belarus is an imprison-able offence - so we all did for the live stream, in Belarussian.
The Gulags still exist in Belarus, having bothered to find out more after seeing the emotions on those actors' faces.
edited to give an Amnesty International link, not Wikipedia
[ 29. September 2013, 06:36: Message edited by: Curiosity killed ... ]
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
Ariel: quote:
I was wondering that. How would she have been able to write an open letter - indeed one as long as that, without being discovered - and get it out of a place like that?
Stranger things have happened.
Or are you suggesting that Russian prisoners of conscience are less ingenious than British (and French, Polish, Dutch...) prisoners of war?
If there were unsuccessful attempts to get other letters out, we wouldn't know about them, would we?
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Niteowl
Hopeless Insomniac
# 15841
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
Ariel: quote:
I was wondering that. How would she have been able to write an open letter - indeed one as long as that, without being discovered - and get it out of a place like that?
Stranger things have happened.
Or are you suggesting that Russian prisoners of conscience are less ingenious than British (and French, Polish, Dutch...) prisoners of war?
If there were unsuccessful attempts to get other letters out, we wouldn't know about them, would we?
Or this example of a letter that made it out of a Chinese labor camp in a halloween decoration?
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"love all, trust few, do wrong to no one"
Wm. Shakespeare
Posts: 2437 | From: U.S. | Registered: Aug 2010
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
I was also reminded of the thread by this report of Tolokonnikova whereabouts being unknown at present.
It does seem a bit of a catch 22 if you are an abused political prisoner and you find that getting word through to the outside world regarding your predicament is taken as proof that your predicament isn't all that bad after all.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
I’m not going over all this again, just because you’re bored enough to revive a thread from two months ago. I said what I wanted to say further up the thread. End of.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
Did I miss the memo about Nadezhda Tolokonnikova being released?
If she hasn't been released, I think being concerned about what's happening to her is perfectly appropriate. I'm sorry if that bores you, but nobody forced you to read the thread after I revived it.
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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JoannaP
Shipmate
# 4493
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Posted
As this thread has been revived...
This article suggests that Russian prisoners do not find the publication of the letter suspicious.
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"Freedom for the pike is death for the minnow." R. H. Tawney (quoted by Isaiah Berlin)
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin
Posts: 1877 | From: England | Registered: May 2003
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
Or Bonhoeffer for that matter.
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
Or Bonhoeffer for that matter.
He wasn't in the Gulag. He was in a Nazi prison.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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