Remember the 2005 story of the Minister's son who drove over an old lady in Moscow, and then the government prosecuted her grieving Son for "assault", while the murderer was released?
Such stories have become the norm.
Life in Putin's Russia - Article by Yulia Latynina (from 2008)
[url]http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/20/AR2008062002596.html[/url]
2009:
Some more articles auto-translated or referenced by bloggers:
Russian Police Officer drives over a pregnant woman - remains free.
Lena and Alexey Shumm
[img]http://www.kasparov.ru/images/materials/4A1CEEFBE8453.jpg[/img]
Blog Entry and translation of husbands' livejournal posts:
[url]http://globalvoicesonline.org/2009/05/29/russia-blogging-for-justice-in-hit-and-run-accident-case/[/url]
Article by Yulia Latynina:
[url]http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=hp&hl=en&js=n&u=http%3A%2F%2Fej.ru%2F%3Fa%3Dnote%26id%3D9111&sl=ru&tl=en&history_state0=[/url]
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Rights Activists Murdered - Journalist and Lawyer.
[i]"They Died for Russia's Freedom"[/i]
[img]http://en.novayagazeta.ru/ai/article.1304/pics.4.jpg[/img]
"We are not afraid" by Elena Milashina
[url]http://en.novayagazeta.ru/data/2009/005/00.html[/url]
That newspaper lost 4 journalists to assassinations over the past few years.
This is just one newspaper, many other journalists are killed for their political views each year.
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Corruption on the Rise:
[url]http://www.theotherrussia.org/2008/06/30/russia-drops-in-corruption-ranking/[/url]
[quote]
Russia has slipped from 120th to 143rd place, out of a total 160 countries. As RIA Novosti reports, Russia received a rating of 2.3 on a 10 point scale, equating it with countries like Gambia, Indonesia and Togo.
... “One of the main reasons for this, in my view, is the flawed judiciary: judges are bribed and intimidated, all decisions are made via phone calls, so the courts aren’t working properly.”"[/quote]
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Next Time - The Invasion of Georgia