I’ve just read this transcript of a report from Russian tv show The Main Theme, which essentially seems to be about how unfair it is that Russia is accused of human rights abuses when the United Kingdom is abusing them far more than Russia.
The only problem with this argument, of course, is that it is rubbish.
Compared to the United Kingdom Russia appears to be an extremely liberal country despite its long fight against terrorism. Just consider this. After the scandal in connection with the killing of the Brazilian man, Scotland Yard chief Ian Blair said that he could not rule out that the Brazilian man would not be the last victim of anti-terrorism operations. Police will still operate a shoot-to-kill policy against alleged suicide bombers. Somebody else could be shot, Ian Blair said. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw considers the shoot-to-kill policy against suspect suicide bombers justified. Who are suspects? One suspect has already been killed and he had no connection whatsoever to suicide bombers.
Imagine that [Russian Interior Minister Rashid] Nurgaliyev goes on air and says: An official order has been issued to shoot at anyone who is suspected of terrorism. And immediately the next day headlines in the foreign press read: Gulags are back, Stalin’s repression and such. But Russia is not the one to have repression. It is Britain. And by the way isn’t it time for Russia to finally head the international human rights movement, if only because we have stronger nerves?
[Source: Russian tv show The Main Theme. Translated by BBC Monitoring, reported in Johnson’s Russia List #9120]
Correct me if I’m wrong, but:
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Don’t Russian troops routinely round up and imprison, beat, steal from, shoot, etc, Chechens they suspect of being terrorists?
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Didn’t Vladimir Putin once promise to blow up terrorists (specifically Chechen terrorists, I think) while they were sitting on the toilet?
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Didn’t the Russian government recently announce that it was prepared to shoot down any suspicious airplanes as they approached cities, civilian airliner or not?
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And is anyone out there seriously going to tell me that police in Moscow won’t use lethal force against someone with a dark complexion who they suspect of being a suicide bomber on the metro?
Stronger nerves? Please.
{ 2 comments }
bloggnjus 07.27.05 at 5:57 pm
- “Didn’t Vladimir Putin once promise to blow up terrorists (specifically Chechen terrorists, I think) while they were sitting on the toilet?” as far as i heard he just wanted to blow up terrorist (no extra mentioning of chechen)
- give me just 1(!) report of someone actually shot without reason / suspected suicide bomber
“Didn’t the Russian government recently announce that it was prepared to shoot down any suspicious airplanes as they approached cities, civilian airliner or not? ”
There are laws for this in america and after 09/11 in most european countries too, read for german “suicide bomber” too
(its most likely the guy was protesting against social reforms)
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050724/wl_nm/germany_planes_ban_dc_1
http://en.rian.ru/world/20050725/40968310.html
Andy 07.28.05 at 2:33 pm
Bloggnjus - the point of my post was not so much to highlight Russian human rights abuses (although there are many), but to highlight the absurdity of the claim that Russians cannot and do not have policies as ‘harsh’ as those the United Kingdom have enforced.
Taking your points in turn:
Putin blowing up terrorists on the toilet. Putin’s comment is re-printed in various forms in the press and, as far as I can tell it does not directly refer to Chechens within the quote itself. However, the context (certainly as reported by the press) seems to be very clear - he made his comment while discussing Chechens.
Here’s how the Guardian quoted Putin in 1999:
CNN also has a couple of takes on Putin’s comment, here and here. There are doubtless others.
You want just one report of someone shot without reason?
Just check out any Human Rights Watch report for details of abuses within Chechnya by Russian and (more regularly these days) pro-Russian Chechen militia. Not to mention the countless abuses carried out by rebel and terrorist Chechens, of course.
As far as I know no-one has yet been shot by Moscow or St Petersburg police for being a suspected suicide bomber, but I am confident in my assertion that they are prepared to shoot to kill, and have orders to do so if necessary.
Finally, yes the United States and several other countries have laws allowing them to shoot down civilian airliners. I fully agree with the laws, and have no problem with Russia having a similar law. Which goes to show, I think, that Russia can have laws allowing it to shoot terrorists without necessarily risking international condemnation.
The condemnation that Russia often reaps is not so much due to the laws it passes, but its propensity to abuse these laws, or to abuse them. It isn’t just the letter of the law that one must take into account, but how a country follows the spirit of a law.
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