PUTIN’S LATEST MOVE:

Sarah,

This week, Putin supporters expelled an opposition leader named Gennady Gudkov from Parliament.  Although Gudkov supported Putin in the past, he had recently begun to criticize corruption and inefficiency within Putin’s United Russia party.  The official charge against Gudkov was “conducting business while in office” but observers could not help but notice that the expulsion occurred on the eve of a large anti-Putin protest.  This is important because lawmakers have a degree of immunity and the expulsion leaves Gudkov vulnerable to prosecution for any connection to the protests.

So let’s add up Putin’s latest moves:

-expulsion of Gudkov from Parliament

-imprisonment of other opposition leaders

-imprisonment of a female punk band named Pussy Riot for singing a song in a church

-passage of new laws that dramatically increase fines for protesting

-passage of a law criminalizing libel

-passage of laws that increase censorship of the internet

Bottom line: New acts of repression are happening weekly.  Russia is heading in the wrong direction.