Marina Ovsyannikovawhen you finish reading the 154 pages of the book of Eduardo Jordan Anna Akhmatova (Ediciones Zut), evokes for you the situation that the great Russian poet (Odessa, 1889-Moscow, 1966) experienced in Stalin’s USSR. And they are also evoked, of course, by the Russian feminist associations that demonstrate against the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Marina is the producer and journalist for Channel 1 of Russian state television who broke out with cries of “Stop the war. No to the war” last Monday night on the set of the news program Vremya (Time) of prime audience. Behind the presenter’s back, she displayed a poster signed “Russians against the war”, which read in Russian and English: “Don’t believe the propaganda. they are lying to you“. The announcer, following instructions from the studio, raised her voice to cover her proclamations, without success, until, finally, the channel chose to put a recorded space.
The journalist previously broadcast a pre-recorded video in which she stated “feeling shame“for working on Channel 1 broadcasting”kremlin propaganda“.
“Now I am very ashamed. Ashamed of telling lies from the television screen. Ashamed of favoring the ‘zombification’ of the Russian people.”
He displayed a blue and yellow neck bow with the Ukrainian flag. “My father is Ukrainian and my mother is Russian. What is happening in Ukraine is a crime and Russia is the aggressor. The responsibility for this aggression lies on the shoulders of Vladimir Putin. We have the power to stop this madness. Go to the demonstrations. Don’t be afraid of anything. They can’t jail us all“.
Between 3 and 15 years in prison
marine has been arrested immediately and fined 30,000 rubles (239 euros). And she is playing between 3 and 15 years in prison. On March 3, a group of deputies from the Duma (Lower House of Parliament) proposed amendments to the Russian Penal Code to criminalize deliberate misinformation about the Russian Army. On March 4 they were approved by both chambers and signed by Putin for their entry into force on March 5.
According to the new article 207.3 of the Criminal Code, “the public dissemination of deliberately false information about the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and public acts aimed at discrediting the Armed Forces in order to protect the interests of Russia and its citizens , maintaining international peace and security” will lead to varying degrees of punishment from fines to imprisonment.
The new law provides 3 years in prison for those who fabricate false information (fake news) about the Army and from 5 to 10 years if the person who disseminates them uses an official position in a group or organization through social networks. Finally, if whoever distributes the false information causes “dangerous social consequences” they can face 15 years in prison. Likewise, the disrepute of the Army that supposes defining as “invasion” and “war” the so-called “special military operation” that Putin has launched.
Article 58
207.3 is reminiscent of the famous article 58 of the old Soviet Criminal Code. It is interesting to reproduce the story that the writer Eduardo Jordá puts into Ajmatova’s mouth.
Osip Mandelstam [gran poeta ruso nacido en Varsovia en 1891 y muerto en un campo de internamiento próximo a Vladivostok en 1938] he was very incensed by what he had seen in Crimea and southern Ukraine during the Great Famine (which, naturally, was not discussed in the Soviet press). One day he read to us in his apartment the famous Epigram against Stalin. When I heard him recite it I was stunned… he had never heard anything like it.
Related news
His fingers thick as worms, greasy and his words like heavy hammers, accurate His cockroach whiskers seem to laugh and the tops of his boots gleam. A written poem could be considered “anti-Soviet activity”, and those crimes (along with high sabotage and terrorism) were included in the terrible article 58 of our Penal Code. Those convicted under article 58 could receive very severe sentences, including the “supreme measure”, that is, the death penalty. Officially, the death penalty had been abolished from our Constitution -we were a “humanist” country-, but the crimes included in article 58 were the responsibility of the military courts and the Special Section of the police (unfortunately I had to learn very well the intricacies of this bureaucratic nightmare). And that special jurisdiction could apply the “supreme measure”.
“I was in Mandelstam’s apartment in May 1934 when the Chekists [policía política] They went to stop him. Apparently, some of us who had heard the poem recited against Stalin ran to denounce it. No one who has not experienced such a situation can imagine what that means…In 1936, Yezhov [Nickolái] replaced Yagoda [Guénrij] commanding the secret police -or Commissariat of the Interior- and began the Great Purges [Los procesos de Moscú]. From that moment on, no one could feel safe anywhere in the Soviet Union. Everyone was suspected of having committed a crime under article 58. Everyone was a possible traitor. Stalin’s purpose was evident: everyone must have been afraid, very afraid. In Nazi Germany you were condemned for being a Jew or for being homosexual or for being a communist, but the citizens who obeyed the Führer could live in peace. In the Soviet Union nobody could feel calm no matter how obedient they were. Between us the most exemplary communist in the world could be condemned for a crazy accusation obtained under torture. And here anyone could be sent to the Gulag or be executed if someone accused them of having wanted to assassinate Lenin in 1918. The Madelstams [Ósip y su esposa Nadezhda] like all those sentenced under article 58, they were forbidden to live in a major city, so they had to stay in small towns that were more than 105 kilometers from Moscow…”.
www.elperiodico.com
Eddie is an Australian news reporter with over 9 years in the industry and has published on Forbes and tech crunch.