Nice to see someone calling out AI for its spinelessness. Sad to see that no one seems to care about Navalny.
Yes, Amnesty got played by Russian trolls. And yes, I'm pessimistic about his survival, too. I'm not sure why he chose martyrdom. His daughter is in college in the US; Wikipedia doesn't say anything about his son, so I presume he's not yet college age.
I disagree that no one seems to care, but a top dissident in a Russian prison is a tough nut to crack. In contrast to the late Soviet regime, the current Russian government tends to see not abiding by international norms as a virtue, or at least a sign of strength.
I don't understand Navalny's decision to go back to Russia in the first place. Surely it was clear to him that being jailed, denied medical treatment, and possibly dying under conditions tantamount to torture, were very likely outcomes. What does he think he's accomplishing by letting himself be subjected to these things? It was already well known that Putin was the kind of person who would do these things to dissidents. Perhaps he is trying to put some extra public pressure on western governments to stand up to Russia?
Former NRA infiltrant Marina Butina (now with RT) visited him recently.
2: I have a vague notion that he was transported while unconscious? did I make that up or see it in a movie?
He left Russia unconscious because of the poisoning.
3 I wonder as well. Maybe he thought the protest movement would grow and grow and consume the country? He can't possibly have been counting on sustained western attention/action.
I assume his goal here was to follow the Mandela approach of becoming a lightning rod for the movement while spending most of his life in jail. Maybe he thought once he was safely in prison they weren't going to kill him? Or maybe the point was to become a martyr? It's a little hard to know what you're supposed to do in the face of these modern totalitarian regimes that seem to not lose any popularity when they do horrible crackdowns.
There's the flip side question, why is Russia decide to kill Navalny, but say Israel doesn't decide to kill Barghouti? Why did the Burmese military just keep putting Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest and not poison her? Presumably it's that at least part of the government wants to keep the leader alive as an insurance policy in case they decide they do want to make some kind of peace down the road? If there's no one to negotiate with then you're in big trouble if you decide to switch tactics. Why is this different for Putin? Is Xi going to have Joshua Wong killed?
Maybe they threatened to shoot his kids?
Russia in particular seems to embrace flagrant assassinations while eshewing formal executions. Maybe the lawlessness is the point?
9. Putin does it because Russia is in most ways a basket case, and his KGB upbringing teaches that giving an inch dooms you (see Gorbachev). Xi has had people killed, but China isn't a basket case. He is also a member of the "never give an inch" school of leadership.
Why did the Burmese military just keep putting Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest and not poison her?
Isn't that the conventional "we don't want a martyr" logic?
13: But why don't they want martyr, and Putin doesn't care about martyrs? Is worrying about not wanting a martyr no longer necessary for authoritarian regimes?
14 If the assassination of Boris Nemtsov has anything to say about it I'd say no, Putin doesn't give a rat's ass about martyrs.
Or Berezovsky, Litvinenko, Magnitsky, etc. The list is quite long.
Yes, I think big states like Russia and China* are more likely to be impunitous, oderint-dum-metuant, but more normal for small-to-medium states is fear that martyrdom will spark dangerous mass movements against them.
* Or who knows, maybe it's the specific personalities of Putin and Xi, but at any rate it's not the norm.
It looks like Navalny has ended his hunger strike and is now in a civilian hospital. Hopefully he recovers.
I saw this in the sidebar and thought for sure that you'd come to say that he'd died. This is better than that.
Also, I swear to god: I first wrote "I sall this in the sidebar" and stared at it for a long time (seconds, but still) before it dawned on me why it looked weird. What is wrong with me.