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A well-known Russian journalist, head of the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations  Oleg Panfilov in early November moved for permanent residency from Moscow to Tbilisi. In a conversation with journalists he explained that his decision was based on the fact that in Russia unknowns were constantly threatening him through the internet with physical lynching.

This news appeared on the internet on the 9th of November. To me this «news» was known two months ago: Oleg himself had told me about his desire to forsake Russia. In so doing no arguments in the form of threats did he name. I think that in this situation, unnamed colleagues were inaccurately treating the essence of the event.

Oleg told me that he intends to live in Georgia and to read lectures at the journalism school in the Tbilisi state university, as well as to actively cooperate on the "Caucasian telechannel"  being opened as of the new year in Tbilisi, which, presumably, will broadcast to the whole Caucasian region.

The appearances and declarations of Oleg Panfilov on this topic are well-known to my colleagues. Thus, in particular, he , making reference to facts, asserted that in recent years a catastrophic situation has evolved in the Russian mass information media. As a result of the crisis, several thousand journalists have lost their jobs - mass information media have reduced staffs by 15-30%. In so doing "it is complex to say specifically how many mass information media employees were reduced with violation of Labor legislation", noted the journalist.

Panfilov had likewise declared that Russia is found in first place in the world with respect to the quantity of initiated criminal cases in relation to journalists. In so doing 95% of them are initiated by representatives of the power.

By the way, Oleg Panfilov is far from the first (and, most likely) not the last journalist to abandon Russia. In their time from the country left correspondent of radio «Liberty» Andrei Babitsky;  television presenter Savik Shuster;  «Novaya gazeta» correspondent Sergei Zolovkin;  the female Chechen journalist Mainat Abdullayeva; journalists from Karachayevo-Chnrkessia Yuri Bagrov and Fatima Tlisova; Elena Tregubova, who had written the book «Tales of a Kremlin Digger»;  journalist from Kemerovo Alexander Kosvintsev;  Manana Aslamazyan, who had headed the foundation "Educated Media" and the organization "Internews»;  Mikhail Voitenko,  former editor-in-chief of the authoritative net magazine "Morskoy bulletin - Sovfrakht"... The list can be continued. All of them were threatened by obvious danger. Panfilov, I can presume, could have had such danger lying in wait for him in the future.

At any rate, on the site Grani.Ru he said: «In Georgia I can feel myself professionally indispensable. I can take part in public processes, that are interesting to me. It is not wanted to conduct the remaining years to no purpose... If one is to speak of some kind of undercurrent, then, of course, it is there. The undercurrent consists of the fact that Georgia - is a country much more free than Russia, and here there are prospects for development both for journalistics, and for society, it is more interesting for me here now. Unfortunately, I have to say that in Russia there are fewer and fewer such prospects, and to be honest, I am already sufficiently disenchanted in the prospects of my work in Russia»

Photo: Oleg Panfilov.
Source

Надувать щёки is not, as the otherwise brilliant Kremlin translators would have it, "to be full of hot air." Sure, someone with a swelled head might also run off at the mouth without saying anything of value -- which is what "to be full of hot air" means. But Medvedev wasn't calling on officials to cut the crap. He was telling them to stop playing the big shot.

This is clear in the sentence that follows: Мы заинтересованы в притоке в страну капиталов, новых технологий и передовых идей (We want to see capital, new technologies and cutting-edge ideas coming into the country). The West, he asserted, is interested in the same thing: Знаем, что и наши партнёры рассчитывают на сближение с Россией для реализации своих приоритетных задач (We know that our partners are counting on better relations with Russia in order to achieve their priority goals). In other words: We want it and they want it, but our unwarranted pride is getting in the way.

No wonder this was the hot topic in the steam room. Let's hope it's not just hot air.

Moscow would soon grow famous for operatic oligarchs and Byzantine intrigues, but Khodorkovsky never got caught in a compromising position -- never snared at an Alpine resort, a Moscow casino or on a Riviera yacht. Girls, power, even the money, seemed to hold no magic. Where others basked in pomp, he was shy and painfully soft-spoken; you never heard his squeaky voice, a semitone deeper than Mike Tyson's, at dacha parties for the foreign press, let alone on television. He divorced young but stayed on good terms with his first wife. Inna, his second, he met at the institute. Khodorkovsky was never flashy -- he wore jeans and turtlenecks; the family vacationed in Finland -- but he radiated the unlikely allure of a muscular technocrat. And yet, even at the top, he seemed adrift, unsure of his role in society. Unlike older Jewish oligarchs, men like Boris Berezovsky and Vladimir Gusinsky, who were often animated by old scores to settle, Khodorkovsky did not seem to consider himself an outsider. Lacking a public persona, he came to personify, by default, the revenge of the Soviet geek. (...)

"WHO FEARS A FREE Khodorkovsky?" asked Marina Filippovna Khodorkovskaya, the defendant's 75-year-old mother. "Forgive me if I'm blunt, but it's Putin, and all those around him who stole Yukos." Marina Filippovna comes to court as often as possible. A sturdy former engineer, she has never shied from speaking her mind. Asked by the BBC what she would do if she met Putin, Marina Filippovna replied without pause, "I would kill him." "It's not for me to say what led to all this," she told me, as we stood together one morning, awaiting the arrival of her son, in the dilapidated Khamovnichesky District Court in central Moscow. She raised both hands to conjure the years of turmoil. "I only know this case is about politics and money. But which is more important, only those on high" -- again she gestured, this time to the ceiling -- "know the truth."

The answer is unlikely to emerge in Judge Viktor Danilkin's courtroom, a humble affair on the third floor of a squat building perched above the Moscow River. Each time I went to court, over the course of two weeks earlier this year, I sat a few feet from the defendant. It was a scene to boggle Kafka's imagination.

Khodorkovsky would spend hours, pink highlighter in one hand, yellow Post-its in another, meticulously winnowing down a stack of papers balanced on his crossed legs. He sat on a bench, locked inside a narrow rectangle of steel and bulletproof glass, along with his former deputy Lebedev. "The aquarium," the guards have nicknamed the new model of the Soviet-era defendants' cage. The wall of glass alone, Khodorkovsky later said in a missive, weighs a ton and a half. Court officials asked the defense team, a roster as long and distinguished as any in the annals of Russian jurisprudence, to move their desks away from the cage. "They feared the floorboards would buckle," Khodorkovsky explained.

The trial is open, but only three or four reporters (all local) show up regularly. One morning, Marina and her husband, Boris, sat in the front row. On another day, Garry Kasparov, the chess grandmaster turned opposition leader, anchored a row in back, his bodyguard nearby. Outside the courthouse, a car blasted Russian techno, and atop the steep riverbank nearby, lovers mingled on benches and a stray drunk slumbered. The audience, rarely more than two dozen, was dominated by a female crew of Khodorkovsky supporters -- the most devoted was a schoolteacher on a daily vigil. One day the supporters passed out yellow and green scarves, the Yukos colors. Nearly everyone, including the journalists, tied them around their necks.

Artwork is exclusive copyright of Алексей Ермолаев and http://risuemsud.ru/en/.

November 18, 2009

Dear clients, partners and friends,

On the night of November 17, 2009 we lost our colleague and friend Sergey Magnitskey. Sergey was 37.

Sergey died in police custody where he had been held almost a year without trial or bail. He was held by a group of police officers who he had testified against; a group of officers who we believe committed a crime against a client and the Russian State.

Sergey died because he would not cooperate with criminals. He was repeatedly told that if he gave false testimony against his client he would be released and he refused. As time went on his captors put him in ever worsening conditions as a means of pressuring him to cooperate. His health deteriorated and after being diagnosed by prison doctors as needing medication and an operation, the police then increased the pressure on Sergey by denying him medical treatment.

We knew that Sergey was ill and that he was suffering. We did not know how bad his condition was but we did our best to bring his illegal detention and his deteriorating condition to the attention of the Russian authorities and we had a lot of help on the way. Despite our efforts and the efforts of many friends, the Russian authorities did not act and Sergey died of a condition that could have been cured with a simple operation and medication.

Many of you knew Sergey professionally, some of you had the opportunity to know him on a more personal level.

Sergey was a remarkable man. Honest, decent, kind, and incredibly knowledgeable. He had faith in Russian law and in Russia. He had a quite strength of character and in the end he maintained his integrity under impossible conditions.

There is a cry of shock and outrage in the press, both in Russia and abroad, and we shall add our voices to it. Like Sergey we believe that rule of law is worth fighting for and we shall do our best to see that his death has some meaning.

On a more personal level, we have lost a great friend; someone we all admired and the kind of person that Russia needs more of. We will miss him greatly. Sergey is survived by his mother, his wife and his two children. Their financial needs will be taken care of. It is the least we can do for our friend.

Respectfully,
Firestone Duncan

In any case, I -- for all my skepticism about any Kremlin initiative -- declare my support for Mr. Medvedev, because, ladies and gentlemen, we have hit bottom. It all began with the Kremlin's declaration, not long before the financial crisis, that Russia is rising from its knees. But a large body needs help to get up. In this case, the chosen instrument of assistance was imperial crutches. But where were they to be found? All the neighboring countries of the former U.S.S.R. not only declined to serve as crutches, but, like children during a school break, ran away (for the most part toward Europe).

Instead of seizing the initiative and turning West itself, Russia took offense and turned in on itself. And there it found a large stock of old ideas: Orthodox dreams of a chaste civilization, ultra-right nationalism at times bordering on fascism. A virtual return to the U.S.S.R. -- and to Stalin -- were unavoidable.

These were the crutches it grabbed. This may not be comprehensible to the West. There, it might seem that a return to the past has no prospects or logic. But a significant number of Russians are rushing backward because they see nothing good in the future. This is understandable emotionally: Only in the past, as in the womb, is it warm and safe; only in the past are there symbols and victories that people can understand.

And so, nationalism in Russia has assumed unprecedented dimensions. It has permeated major television channels, many newspapers, government organs and intellectual collectives. Attacking those who disagree has come to be encouraged. Informing on or smearing opponents has become common. Witch hunts have proliferated not only through politics, but also through culture.

It has become something of a journalistic cliché to take these shocking Kafkaesque legal sagas in Russia and call them "a litmus test" for the country to demonstrate its rule of law and potential for judicial independence. But we do ourselves a disservice if we continue to be surprised but a movie we have seen over and over again. The process of medical blackmail against Magnitsky is identical to what they did to Alexanyan. The ominous warning signal of what happens to whistleblowers serves the same purpose as what Anna Politkovskaya's murder did for freedom of press.

Let the tragic death of Magnitsky not stand as another litmus test for rule of law, but rather a reverse test which measures our commitment to human rights. How many more dead Russians will it take before the world stands up and takes notice? Given the fluid willingness of so many presidents (Obama included) to seek accommodation and compromise to extract any improvement in relations with Russia, it is unlikely that this death will impact anyone's deal. Next week if the media reports on the next business stolen by the government, the next activist shot, or the next journalist thrown in jail, will we pretend to be surprised again?

Russia long ago failed its litmus test for rule of law, but the international community must not fail its own.