By Mark Trevelyan
LONDON (Reuters) -Veteran Russian rights activist Oleg Orlov was convicted and fined on Wednesday for “discrediting” the armed forces after telling a Moscow court docket that Russia had descended right into a totalitarian state resembling George Orwell’s “1984”.
Orlov, 70, was defending himself in a case primarily based on a November 2022 article through which he wrote that Russia beneath President Vladimir Putin had descended into fascism.
Removed from repenting of that assertion, he defiantly used his closing speech to declare that Russians had been dwelling in Orwell’s dystopian world as their nation waged conflict on its neighbour whereas claiming to help freedom, peace and safety.
“There’s nonetheless no idea of ‘thought crime’ within the Russian felony code; residents usually are not but punished for doubting the correctness of state coverage if it was expressed in a whisper in their very own residence; they aren’t punished for an incorrect facial features. But,” he stated.
“But when somebody expresses such doubt exterior his residence, denunciation and punishment might observe,” stated Orlov, a number one member of the Memorial human rights group that was disbanded by Russia in 2021 however gained a share of the Nobel Peace Prize the next yr.
He requested aloud how Russia had thrown off communism within the Nineties, solely to “slide into a brand new totalitarianism”.
Orlov was supported in court docket by Dmitry Muratov, co-winner of the Nobel prize in 2021, whose Novaya Gazeta newspaper was pressured to close down quickly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Muratov stated that simply as dissident Andrei Sakharov had predicted that the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan would lead the Soviet Union to catastrophe, so Orlov was justified in warning that Russia was following a path in the direction of self-destruction in Ukraine.
‘DARK FORCES’
“Why does the state take a tax on lives with out asking the consent of its residents? Shakes out their lives like grain from the peasants after the revolution?” Muratov stated.
“We see that Sakharov was proper, completely proper again then, warning that the USSR would undermine its existence, and Orlov is correct now, warning concerning the hazard of darkish, pro-fascist forces.”
Orlov’s and Muratov’s prolonged statements to the court docket amounted to a devastating critique of Putin’s choice to go to conflict in Ukraine from two of Russia’s most internationally revered figures.
The Kremlin says its “particular army operation” was justified by the necessity to shield Russian-speakers in Ukraine from “genocide” and to “demilitarise” and “denazify” the nation – arguments rejected by Kyiv and its Western allies as a false pretext for an imperial-style conflict.
The prosecution in Orlov’s case stated the truth that the court docket listening to was open to the media, and that Muratov had been allowed to talk regardless of being designated a “international agent” by the state, confirmed that freedom of speech was protected in Russia.
Nevertheless it stated such rights had been accompanied by obligations, together with an obligation to obey legal guidelines. It stated it was impermissible to hold out “provocations aimed toward splitting civil society”.
Based mostly on Orlov’s age and state of well being, nevertheless, the prosecution stated it was in search of to have him fined, moderately than asking for the jail sentence of as much as three years that it might have sought beneath legal guidelines handed quickly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine final yr.
The choose ordered a high quality of 150,000 roubles ($1,500), decrease than the 250,000 roubles the prosecutors had demanded.
Orlov, in his speech, stated Russians had the suitable beneath the structure to carry a unique opinion from Putin.
“The place is it outlined that our commander-in-chief (Putin) at all times rightly understands not solely the pursuits of Russia, however the pursuits of its residents?” Orlov requested in his closing speech at a trial which started in June.
“And if the concepts of part of Russia’s residents about their very own pursuits do not match these of the commander-in-chief, do not they’ve the suitable to speak about this?”
“However in that case, the president is not a president, however a non secular and secular chief… Or are Russia’s prime officers now infallible, just like the Pope?”
