I can tell you what political harassment feels like in Putin’s Russia. Like many dissidents I am used to abuse, but a recent campaign against me was so personal, so scary, that I was forced to flee.
Two months ago, a Russian plane transporting the world-famous military choir Alexandrov Ensemble crashed into the Black Sea en route to Syria. They were travelling to perform for pilots involved in Russia’s air campaign on Aleppo.
I wrote a post about this on Facebook. I didn’t call for anything or insult anyone. I just reminded my readers that Russia was indiscriminately bombing Aleppo, without recognising that dozens of children were dying in those bombs, their photographs making their way around the world. I also called Russia an aggressor.
In 2014, Russia annexed Crimea and occupied parts of eastern Ukraine, starting a war which has left at least 10,000 people dead. Prior to that, Russia occupied part of Georgia with its bombs and tanks.After all these wars and deaths, I felt only one thing when I heard that the representatives of Russia’s military had died: indifference. But for some, expressing this on Facebook was not patriotic enough. And so it began.
The first to speak out was Vitaly Milonov, a State Duma deputy who is famous for his homophobia and obscurantism. Milonov called on the powers that be to deprive me and Bozhena Rynska, another journalist who wrote an insufficiently patriotic post on Facebook, of Russian citizenship, to deport us and confiscate our property.
Then Senator Frants Klintsevich spoke out, calling for us to be dealt with “according to the law” and assuring us there would be a “reaction”. And the campaign began to snowball.
All the elements of the propaganda machine were engaged. Channel One, Russia’s most powerful state channel, called on its viewers to create a petition supporting the removal of our citizenship and deportation. In 24 hours it was signed by 130,000 people.
Then, the tabloid channel LifeNews collaborated with the courts to serve me with a fine for not buying a bus ticket – I am a war veteran, and enjoy free public transport as a result. Fines are a familiar tactic in Russia, often issued to stop someone from leaving the country because of their debts.
Then a “beat ‘em up game” emerged online where players are asked to “deal with the enemies of the homeland using your own fists and boots”. These enemies have to be “beaten until they fall”. I’m one of them.
The General Prosecutor’s Office is now investigating Rynska’s Facebook post and she could face five years in prison. Meanwhile, there are pro-government thugs waiting outside her home, who try to break in from time to time.
My home address has also been published on the internet, together with an invitation “to visit”. I have received threats to me and my family by the thousand – in my email inbox, on Facebook and by phone.
Attacks and beatings against dissidents in Russia have been happening for a long time – there must be hundreds of such incidents now. They usually use baseball bats, crowbars or bottles. In September, the investigative journalist Grigory Pasko was left with concussion after an attack by unknown assailants in Barnaul. The day before he had been accused of being a foreign agent by a local newspaper.
Covering dissidents with ink or faeces is another familiar intimidation tactic. Yuliya Latynina, a journalist, was recently covered in faeces and my activist friends have been covered in ink several times for going out on the street with anti-war placards. To cap things off, a pro-government ultranationalist TV channel, Tsargrad, recently released a list of the “Top 100 Russophobes” – I’m number 10, and I fought twice for this country. A country I no longer feel safe in.
Arkady Babchenko is a journalist and author of Memoirs about Chechnya. This article first appeared in Russian on his Facebook page and was translated by Thomas Rowley at Open Democracy
