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    Tony Kevin's thoughts on Ivan Golunov case Archived Message

    Posted by David Macilwain on June 10, 2019, 1:23 pm, in reply to "Jeremy Hunt speaks out about arrested Russian investigative journalist ... and media freedom"

    Tony Kevin, dissident author and ex-diplomat and supporter of Russia, wrote this yesterday about the case of Golunov, which may not be quite as it appears: (I'm not sure he knows about the Meduza projects allegiances, but perhaps these only make the real story more plausible; there is no shortage of corrupt oligarchs or businessmen in Moscow, just not tied to Putin)

    #IvanGolunov is a really interesting and important news story both as to its substance and timing. Golunov is a young, wellknown anti-corruption investigative journalist in Moscow . He has exposed city planning property rackets and extortion scandals going high in the city administration and made powerful enemies. A few days ago while Putin was busy at SPIEF in St Petersburg, Golunov was arrested in Moscow on trumped-up charges of having been a drug smuggler: a packet of drugs was apparently planted in his flat and found easily in half an hour of police searching. He was apparently beaten up in prison. He is facing up to ten years prison if convicted of drug smuggling. He was filmed in a cage looking physically damaged and emotionally distressed.

    There has been a massive spontaneous protest in support of Ivan Golunov by concerned Muscovites. They have queued up in thousands to take part in the allowable one-person street protest. A very orderly but determined crowd.

    There has also been huge online protest in Russian and English forums , in which Ivan Golunov’s editor and friend at @meduzaproject, @Alexey_Kovalev , is playing a central reporting and advocacy role ( see the very interesting English language Twitter account of @Alexey_Kovalev) .

    The initial court hearing, possibly and hopefully in response to all the public protest in his favour , and maybe also with pressure from higher up the Russian government hierarchy, today ruled that Ivan be held in house arrest in his Moscow home for three months while the matter is further investigated. This will allow time for facesaving compromises to be explored and negotiated in Russian style.

    The view of Alexey Kovalev Ivan’s friend at the @meduzaproject independent magazine is that the arrest on framed-up charges was the work of independent powerful siloviki (oligarchs) in Moscow - that Putin would have had nothing to do with it.

    The danger now however is that Russophobic false friends in the West , by making a lot of opportunistic exploitative noise allegedly in support of Ivan, will make it harder for his real friends in Russia to get him freed. Most Russians are highly sensitive to their sovereignty and do not like the West trying to interfere in their domestic affairs.

    Here is a measuring rod for how this story progresses from here : at the end of the day, who will have been treated worse by their respective state justice authorities. Ivan Golunov in Russia? Julian Assange in UK? Chelsea Manning and Maria Butina in US? Or Annika Smethurst , David McBride, Witness K and Bernard Collaery in Australia? Let us wait and see who comes out best and worst. It will be an interesting test .

    I will hazard a forecast - that Golunov is already over the worst of his travails . The worst may be yet to come for #Assange and #Manning , and possibly for some of the others on my above list including #McBride .

    If this prognosis makes me a Putin puppet and Kremlin stooge, too bad.

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