Ship of Fools: The Russian Gulags never went away

Thread: The Russian Gulags never went away Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on :

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.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

Wow. That was horrible.

Posted by Tubbs (# 440) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
Wow. That was horrible.

What you said. Bloody hell ... [Votive]

Tubbs

Posted by QLib (# 43) on :

[Mad]

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

I've read many books about the gulag system, and the thread title is quite right. This is just more of the same.

Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on :

I wish I were more surprised. [Disappointed]

Posted by luvanddaisies (# 5761) on :

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”

Posted by Jahlove (# 10290) on :

. 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]

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

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.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

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?

Posted by FooloftheShip (# 15579) on :

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.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

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.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

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.

Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on :

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...

Posted by QLib (# 43) on :

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.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

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 ... ]

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

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?

Posted by Niteowl (# 15841) on :

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?

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

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.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

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.

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

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.

Posted by JoannaP (# 4493) on :

As this thread has been revived...

This article suggests that Russian prisoners do not find the publication of the letter suspicious.

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

Besides, Solzhenitsyn managed to write multiple books while in the Gulag. Surely we're not saying that means his life was happy beans and honey?

Posted by Bullfrog. (# 11014) on :

Or Bonhoeffer for that matter.

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

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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