[Mb-civic] IMPORTANT: Stalinism Forever - Anna Politkovskaya - Washington Post Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

Stalinism Forever
<>
By Anna Politkovskaya
The Washington Post
Saturday, April 1, 2006; A17

MOSCOW -- We are using Stalin's methods again, this time to fight 
terrorism. I am writing for this American newspaper on a subject that 
one can no longer write about in Russia -- islamskiy terrorizm, or 
Islamic terrorism cases. There are hundreds of such cases going through 
the courts in our country. Most of them have been fabricated by the 
government so that the special services can demonstrate how "effective" 
Russia is in fighting terrorism and so that President Vladimir Putin has 
something with which to impress the West.

Close examination of these cases shows that many interrogation records 
have been tampered with and that the documents containing so-called 
honest confessions were obtained through the torture of innocent 
suspects who are being punished for the crimes of Chechen separatist 
Shamil Basayev.

Here is one example of how it's done. Recently two young college 
students from the Chechen capital of Grozny -- Musa Lomayev and Mikhail 
Vladovskikh -- were accused by the police and the prosecutor's office of 
all small, previously unsolved acts of terrorism that had occurred about 
six months before in one of Grozny's residential areas. As a result, 
Vladovskikh is now severely disabled: Both his legs were broken under 
torture; his kneecaps were shattered; his kidneys badly damaged by 
beating; his genitalia mutilated; his eyesight lost; his eardrums torn; 
and all of his front teeth sawed off. That is how he appeared before the 
court.

To get Lomayev to sign -- and he did sign confessions for five acts of 
terrorism -- they inserted electrical wires in his anus and applied 
current. He would lose consciousness, and they would pour water on him, 
show him the wires again, turn him around backward -- and he would sign 
confessions that he belonged to a gang with Vladovskikh. This despite 
the fact that the two defendants were first introduced to one another by 
their prison torturers.

Yet another young man who was pulled into this case is Muslim Chudalov, 
a neighbor of the Vladovskikh family before the war. Within 48 hours of 
being jailed, he produced confessions to 15 crimes, after which the 
torturers dragged him as a witness to testify at the Lomayev-Vladovskikh 
trial. The left side of his face was burned, his arms and legs were 
swollen, and he had bruises and bloodstains all over his body. He could 
neither walk nor stand -- security personnel had to carry him in. 
Responding to the prosecutor's demand, his tongue faltering, Chudalov 
confirmed all of his testimony against Lomayev and Vladovskikh. And 
certainly against himself.

Approximately a month later Chudalov was able to send a message from 
jail: "I could not endure all those tortures. I am scared even now when 
someone simply opens my door. . . . I did not participate personally in 
any one of those crimes. The investigators would themselves state the 
date of a particular crime, then they would tell me: 'This is what you 
participated in,' and beat me up. Then they made me learn the text of my 
statement by heart."

This is how we create our "Islamic terrorists" -- but we are no longer 
allowed to write openly about it in Russia. It is forbidden for the 
press to express sympathy with those sentenced for "terrorism," even if 
a judicial mistake is suspected. During the perestroika years we fought 
so persistently for the right to appeal and the right for clemency, 
knowing how many judicial mistakes are made in the country, and a 
special state committee on pardons was established.

Now, under Putin, the committee has been disbanded, executions have been 
tacitly restored, and judicial mistakes are again viewed as permissible 
and tolerable. The flow of "Islamic terrorism" cases has engulfed 
hundreds of innocent people, while Basayev continues to walk free. And 
there is no end in sight.

The plight of those sentenced for "Islamic terrorism" today is the same 
as that of the political prisoners of the Gulag Archipelago. They 
receive long terms -- 18 to 25 years in strict security camps in 
Siberian swamps and woods, with virtually all communication with the 
outside forbidden. Even the Red Cross is not admitted.

Russia continues to be infected by Stalinism. But it seems to me that 
the rest of the world has been infected along with it, a world shrunken 
and frightened before the threat of terrorism. I recall the words of one 
torture victim at his trial: "What will become of me? How will I be able 
to live in this country if you sentence me to such a long prison term 
for a crime that I did not commit, and without any proof of my guilt?"

He never received an answer to his question. Indeed, what will become of 
all the rest of us, who tolerate this? What has become of us already?

The writer is a special correspondent for the Moscow-based paper Novaya 
Gazeta and the recipient of the 2005 Civil Courage Prize.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/31/AR2006033101584.html?nav=hcmodule
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