How Russian teenagers are being locked up for expressing dissent

[reader]

From CNN

“The last time I hugged him was June 20, the day the verdict was pronounced,” she recounted in a phone interview with CNN. “He hugged me, cried, and then the guards immediately came up and took him away.”

In August, a year after he was first questioned, Arseny marked his 16th birthday behind bars. “Please, I’m asking you to do everything you can to make sure I get released,” Arseny begged his mom in a letter written ahead of an appeal hearing last month and shared with CNN. He had lost 15 kilograms (33 pounds) due to a stress-induced lack of appetite and had been moved to a different cell after episodes of violence from fellow inmates, he said, describing the situation to his mother as “very difficult, critical.”

When Irina got this letter, she couldn’t hold back her tears. “I cried because I understand that I am already doing the best I can,” she told CNN. “But I know it’s not enough, and that I can’t change the system.”

His appeal to overturn his five-year sentence was denied. The next day, Irina came again for a visit, prepared to demonstrate her strength and resilience to help Arseny cope with the devastating ruling.

“I said, ‘Arseny, I’m so proud of you,’” she recalled. “‘You are actually stronger than the people who convicted you,’” she told him, “‘because you have the right to express your opinion and position, while these people only do what they have to do.’”

Her only child faces being moved to a correctional facility for teenagers but for the moment remains in Detention Center No. 5.

Turbina still struggles to comprehend how this happened. “He is just a kid, he has been different since early childhood,” she said. She describes Arseny as someone with “a love for books and studying,” who showed an interest in politics as early as 14, liked to “delve into everything,” and was not afraid to speak his mind and tell the wrong from the right at school or online.

In April 2023, Arseny called a morning live show on TV Rain, an independent network based outside of Russia, to vent about his disappointment in President Vladimir Putin and call out state propaganda at his school. “Human rights are being violated,” he said.

Then on June 12, Russia Day, Irina says he staged a solo protest in their hometown and printed out leaflets that read “I am against Putin” and “freedom for political prisoners,” among other anti-government slogans. She tried her best to discourage him, fearing what might happen.

still struggles to comprehend how this happened. “He is just a kid, he has been different since early childhood,” she said. She describes Arseny as someone with “a love for books and studying,” who showed an interest in politics as early as 14, liked to “delve into everything,” and was not afraid to speak his mind and tell the wrong from the right at school or online.

In April 2023, Arseny called a morning live show on TV Rain, an independent network based outside of Russia, to vent about his disappointment in President Vladimir Putin and call out state propaganda at his school. “Human rights are being violated,” he said.

Then on June 12, Russia Day, Irina says he staged a solo protest in their hometown and printed out leaflets that read “I am against Putin” and “freedom for political prisoners,” among other anti-government slogans. She tried her best to discourage him, fearing what might happen.

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/12/05/europe/russia-teenagers-imprisoned-for-dissent-intl-cmd/index.html

[Moses]

Well, at least he's not among the 1000+ that police kill on US streets every year. 956 already in 2024.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/

by the way: total amount of persons (including foreigners) who are in Russian prisons by "political" criminal articles is still less, than number of persons killed by police in US...

[Travelingguy]

12 minutes ago, Moses said:

Well, at least he's not among the 1000+ that police kill on US streets every year. 956 already in 2024.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/

by the way: total amount of persons (including foreigners) who are in Russian prisons by "political" criminal articles is still less, than number of persons killed by police in US...

This poor kid lives in a brutal dictatorship.  Moses also lives under the same brutal dictatorship.  Millions of others live under this same brutal dictatorship, but they don’t respond to every single post that is in any way critical of Russia or Russia’s dictator.  Most normal people could not be bothered.

I have watched these official Russian state propaganda posts for quite a while now.  My impression is that this is his actual job.  I would urge people to consider this when engaging.

[Keithambrose]

43 minutes ago, Travelingguy said:

This poor kid lives in a brutal dictatorship.  Moses also lives under the same brutal dictatorship.  Millions of others live under this same brutal dictatorship, but they don’t respond to every single post that is in any way critical of Russia or Russia’s dictator.  Most normal people could not be bothered.

I have watched these official Russian state propaganda posts for quite a while now.  My impression is that this is his actual job.  I would urge people to consider this when engaging.

Agreed, quite appalling. 

[Moses]

2 hours ago, Travelingguy said:

This poor kid lives in a brutal dictatorship.  Moses also lives under the same brutal dictatorship.  Millions of others live under this same brutal dictatorship, but they don’t respond to every single post that is in any way critical of Russia or Russia’s dictator.  Most normal people could not be bothered.

I have watched these official Russian state propaganda posts for quite a while now.  My impression is that this is his actual job.  I would urge people to consider this when engaging.

That "poor kid" independently, due to lack of supervision from his mother, he established contact with a terrorist organization, wrote an application to join and filled out a questionnaire and carried out their tasks...

this was last year, I don't know why СNN suddenly pulled this out now...

here is the opposition website, the full story about what happened, use Google to translate

https://meduza.io/feature/2024/06/26/15-letnego-arseniya-turbina-posadili-na-pyat-let-po-obvineniyu-v-tom-chto-on-perepisyvalsya-s-legionom-svoboda-rossii-i-rasprostranyal-listovki-protiv-putina

[Travelingguy]

Official Russian State Propaganda is usually disseminated by employees.

[Moses]

11 minutes ago, Travelingguy said:

Official Russian State Propaganda is usually disseminated by employees.

this is not official propaganda - medusa.io opposition site outside of Russia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meduza

[reader]

3 hours ago, Moses said:

Well, at least he's not among the 1000+ that police kill on US streets every year. 956 already in 2024.

Nobody knows how many killed in Russia because free press to report it doesn’t exist.

But I’m preaching to choir on that count.

[vinapu]

4 hours ago, Moses said:

 

by the way: total amount of persons (including foreigners) who are in Russian prisons by "political" criminal articles is still less, than number of persons killed by police in US...

only if somebody believes in Russian statistics  and outside of Russia those are rare species. As we see by sad fate of that brave young man, probably not many is Russia herself either. 

 

[vinapu]

1 hour ago, Moses said:

 he established contact with a terrorist organization,

sure , we know names of those Russian terrorists : Nemtsov, Politkovskya, Skribal, Litvinenko and of course Navalny 

[floridarob]

4 hours ago, Moses said:

Well, at least he's not among the 1000+ that police kill on US streets every year. 956 already in 2024.

And how about you stay on topic....

Dissent....how many are locked up for that?

You can feel free to say something bad about Putin, because you know he's an evil guy.....or can you???


No whataboutism, stay on topic and say something you really think about Putin and not some fake praise.....come on, do it....dissent 🧐

[vinapu]

19 minutes ago, floridarob said:

No whataboutism, stay on topic and say something you really think about Putin and not some fake praise.....come on, do it....dissent 🧐

you don't want Moses to land in jail, specially Russian one , do you ?

[floridarob]

8 minutes ago, vinapu said:

you don't want Moses to land in jail, specially Russian one , do you ?

But there's almost been 1000 police murders in the US 🤷‍♂️

[vinapu]

33 minutes ago, floridarob said:

But there's almost been 1000 police murders in the US 🤷‍♂️

about the same number like in Moscow and Ryazan alone by latest estimation

[Moses]

19 minutes ago, vinapu said:

about the same number like in Moscow and Ryazan alone by latest estimation

That's false statement.

Total homicide number is about 7500 in 2023, for 145 mln. Not by police, but total.

[vinapu]

4 minutes ago, Moses said:

That's false statement.

Total homicide number is about 7500 in 2023, for 145 mln. Not by police, but total.

that's the problem , that 7500 may or may not be truth. We both know very well how statistics over there are done, if Moscow orders  that in 2025 crime in Novosibirsk must drop by 30% , it will go down by 31.13 %. On paper of course  .

So while I agree that my earlier statement was false, invented for discussion purpose,  in cold reality neither you nor me have reliable numbers of those. It may be that I underestimated it 

[floridarob]

1 hour ago, vinapu said:

you don't want Moses to land in jail, specially Russian one , do you ?

Crickets .... I guess that's his way of staying out of jail, because even if he has me on Ignore, he sees your reply 😉

[Keithambrose]

8 hours ago, vinapu said:

you don't want Moses to land in jail, specially Russian one , do you ?

Why not?

[Moses]

12 hours ago, vinapu said:

that brave young man

Maybe brave, but still stupid kid, who joined terroristic organization, was caught and is now serving time in a special boarding school for children with deviant behavior

[floridarob]

44 minutes ago, Moses said:

for children with deviant behavior

What about adults, like us...??

[unicorn]

19 hours ago, Moses said:

Well, at least he's not among the 1000+ that police kill on US streets every year. 956 already in 2024...

[unicorn]

19 hours ago, Moses said:

Well, at least he's not among the 1000+ that police kill on US streets every year. 956 already in 2024...

 

2 hours ago, Moses said:

Maybe brave, but still stupid kid, who joined terroristic organization, was caught and is now serving time in a special boarding school for children with deviant behavior

Wow. You post a lot of stupid shit on this board, but this has got to be one of the most stupid. Even if it were true that police in the US go around shooting hundreds of people on the streets in the US for no reason, which we all know it isn't, it would still be completely irrelevant to the question of whether this boy is a terrorist, which he most certainly is not. It's pathetic that Putin is such a pussy that he feels threatened by a harmless 16 year-old.

 

[Moses]

1 hour ago, unicorn said:

which we all know it isn't

it is https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-death-by-us-police-by-race/

1 hour ago, unicorn said:

it would still be completely irrelevant to the question of whether this boy is a terrorist, which he most certainly is not

He did nothing terrible, but voluntarily and knowingly joined a terrorist organization and carried out their orders.

If you do not read Russian, use a translator - I have provided a link to the website of an opposition organization. On this website, the authors also regret, pity the boy, but cannot deny that both the boy and his mother confirmed this during interrogation, the interrogation protocol bears the signatures of the boy and mother.

Therefore, the boy is now studying in a special school - he is not 16 years old, according to the constitution, school education is mandatory, for such cases there are such boarding schools. They aren't Iton or summer scout camp, but there are working professional pedagogies.

Personally, my opinion is that the mother did not keep an eye on her son and allowed him to do something stupid. For which he is now paying.

And I don’t understand why CNN suddenly pulled this out now, because the story took place last year. Maybe someone needs anti-Russian hysteria few weeks before to leave oval office?

[vinapu]

3 hours ago, floridarob said:

What about adults, like us...??

tea with polonium treatment

[vinapu]

1 hour ago, unicorn said:

It's pathetic that Putin is such a pussy that he feels threatened by a harmless 16 year-old.

 

 

that is how system of power in dictatorship works, anybody who is dissenting to any degree becomes  enemy to be destroyed, jailed or placed in mental institution.