💥Happening now: another trial of Navalny, already sentenced to 2.8 years. A fabricated case is based on his social media comment on RT (Russia Today) promotional video in which Putin’s allies push changes to the Constitution that extended Putin’s presidency.👇🏼
Navalny called performers “Putin’s lackeys” and now he faces jail time or fine in addition to 2.8 years. Accused of spreading “deliberately false information denigrating the honor and dignity" of a WWII veteran, Navalny is now abandoned by press.
Protests in his support were suppressed by Putin with vengeance. The world got tired of Russia and it’s never-ending drama. Drama or not, evil wins again.
20 minutes ago: a poisoning, coma, solitary confinement and now adding 3 years to penal colony for wanting freedom for their home country. But if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? 
✍️I slept for 6 hours & this circus trial is still going on. The building is circled by security service; #Navalny’s defense witnesses are not allowed in the court house; the veteran refused to make it as he was too tired & the videos in question are freezing—bad connection. 👇🏼
Journalists reporting call it “the new degree of hell.”
The definition of “shame” and “lackeys for sale” are disputed during the hearing. This IS the definition of shame.
The definition of “shame” and “lackeys for sale” are disputed during the hearing. This IS the definition of shame.
Navalny is agitated and uses black humor as defense mechanism—after all he’s been through it is shocking he still has any presence of mind. This trial, this situation needs coverage. It is 2021 but it feels like Brezhnev’s era, like Brodsky’s show trial.
This is the video. The comments below say it all: the people speaking were bought; they are political prostitutes. Navalny now: “I consider those who are persuading people to vote for making Putin a tsar traitors and lackeys.”
Navalny in response to this video didn’t say anything in particular about the veteran in the video. The prosecutors are asking for penal colony term for Navalny.
This is not law: it is lawlessness masquerading as law. Following this trial messes with one’s sense of reality. Orwell meets Lewis Carroll.
Navalny’s defense insists that “lackeys and traitors” as applied to the whole group is an evaluation and not “slander” of one particular member of this group. A linguistic scholar expert is not allowed to the court room.
Good coverage/background in English: google.com/amp/s/www.rfer…
Court break now. During prior hearings, people in Russia protested the injustice. Estimated 300,000 over two weekends; 10,000 arrested; brutal suppression, riot police violence, torture followed. All Navalny’s allies are under house arrests. Journalists arrested, silenced.
Today, it is impossible to protest in the streets without being arrested. Here is the situation in a nutshell:
https://mobile.twitter.com/BylineTV/status/1359261791415631874
Navalny’s doctor’s lawyer explains in an exclusive interview:
https://mobile.twitter.com/ZarinaZabrisky/status/1358100047519387650
What followed after a break: a linguistics professor explains the difference between evaluation and stating facts. Prosecutors ask to define “honor”, “shame of the country”, “dignity”, “traitor.” Ethics category vs. grammatical “statement.”
Navalny says that the 95-y.o. in the video and now as a witness is used as a puppet.
This trial is organized according to the rules of combat propaganda: it plays on emotions. WWII has been hi-jacked by the Kremlin over the last ten years to amplify nationalistic sentiments. zarinazabrisky.medium.com/sealed-in-bloo…
By blaming Navalny for insulting a “Great Patriotic War” CET, the regime plays on the transgenerational, deep collective trauma of the Russian people. It is a brilliant smear campaign.
This is why they let #Navalny speak: the hope is he’s making himself unpopular with his own base. Words “honor”, “dignity”, “motherland”, “traitor”, “patriotism” are emotive words and trigger reactions. The work is done on a subconscious level.
Every family in the former USSR suffered deeply during 1941–1945. Even the numbers are emotionally charged. That’s why the “victim” is the veteran (not a mother, a cheese farmer, an actor.) Putin rules Russia from inside the brains. Not seeing it is a fatal mistake for the world
...since everyone can be a subject to brainwashing and manipulation. The West must pay attention and react; failure to act will turn all of us into #Navalny and #Russia, a nation poisoned, comatose, jailed, under house arrest.
(Court break)
And yes, here is the confirmation of my analysis: the judge calls the RT video “patriotic”
Here it goes now, full scale. prosecutor:”are you intentionally destroying the historical legacy and memory of the Great Patriotic War?” “Did your supporters share photos of Nazi criminals to the web”? Etc it is a smear campaign
Curtain. The next hearing is Feb 16. Enough time to elaborate the smear. I followed 👇🏼@Meduza Their chief editor is currently in jail. This 👆🏼Was the definition of a “shame for the country.” meduza.io/live/2021/02/1…
Shame.
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