Vladimir Bukovsky is almost certainly being framed
Famous Russian dissident Vladimir Bukovsky is in big trouble.
It isn’t the first time. But what’s going on now is very disturbing, both in human terms and for what it says about the current Russian government (much of which we already knew):
Vladimir Bukovsky’s name, like that of Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov, is synonymous with almost unimaginable bravery and resilience in the face of Soviet totalitarianism…For his efforts, he was rewarded with twelve years in the USSR’s prisons, labor camps, and psikhushkas ”” political psychiatric hospitals.
…In 1971, Bukovsky succeeded in smuggling to the West more than 150 pages documenting the Soviet Union’s abuse of psychiatric institutions to silence its opponents. Because of this, the West learned that the KGB routinely declared dissenters mentally ill to avoid embarrassing publiÑ trials and to discredit any regime opposition as the product of a diseased mind. In 1976, after months of negotiation between the Soviet and American governments, Bukovsky was exchanged for Luis Corvalé¡n, the general secretary of the Communist Party of Chile. He has lived in Cambridge, England, ever since.
It didn’t end his opposition to the excesses of the system in Russia; Bukovsky was and is not one to rest on his activist laurels. But now he has run afoul of a combination of Russian government cunning and British law:
On March 17, 2015, Bukovsky offered his sworn testimony at the much-delayed inquiry into the 2006 murder, in London, of former FSB officer Alexander Litvinenko…
Litvinenko also accused Putin of ordering the murder of the Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya and claimed that he had been ordered to kill the Russian businessman Boris Berezovsky, who had likewise turned sharply critical of Putin’s regime…
[Having later accused Putin of having been a pedophile] Litvinenko was poisoned in November 2006 with a lethal dose of radioactive polonium-210, placed by Russian FSB operatives in his afternoon tea in a London hotel. He died 23 days later…
Bukovsky is gravely ill, and now he’s been charged (in Britain) with “five charges of making indecent images of children, five charges of possession of indecent images of children and one charge of possession of a prohibited image” (in this case, “making” can mean as little as merely downloading onto a computer) [emphasis mine]:
Bukovsky believes that Putin’s operatives planted what he says are some 20,000 indecent images of children on his computer and then tipped off the British police using Europol, the EU’s law-enforcement agency…
Shortly after he was charged, Bukovsky sued the Crown Prosecution Services for libel. His writ accuses the service of “falsely and maliciously” damaging his reputation and abusing its powers. The CPS, he claims, went well beyond its statutory duty by making defamatory claims unsupported by any evidence…
If the images were, as Bukovsky charges, planted by the Kremlin, it is clear that the object of the exercise was not to kill him. Nature was obviously well on the way to taking care of that. It was to prove to anyone tempted to follow Bukovsky’s path that the punishment for challenging the Kremlin is worse than death.
Bukovsky wants his name to be cleared before he dies. He has now gone on a hunger strike in order to get that to happen. He has stated his aims this way:
In August he took the unusual step of suing the Crown Prosecution Service for libel: he is seeking £100,000 in damages and claims the CPS has “falsely and maliciously” hurt his reputation…
Speaking at his home in Cambridge, Bukovsky said: “I’m on hunger strike not because of trying to prove anything to the FSB [Russia’s security agency]. We’ve known each other for half a century. There’s nothing new they can tell me or I can tell them. I’m doing it for the British public.”…
Bukovsky wants his libel action against the CPS to be heard before the criminal case begins. He is due to go on trial in May, with his libel case pencilled in for the summer following three postponements. “I’m denied justice, quite openly and blatantly,” he said.
The sequence will allow Russia’s state media to gleefully repeat the criminal allegations, he said, while ignoring the verdict should he be acquitted…
An online petition has been launched and more than 150 former Soviet political prisoners and their descendants have signed a letter of support, describing Bukovsky as “a man of gigantic moral stature”…
Of death, he said: “I’m not afraid of it. How can you be afraid of something inevitable? It isn’t a senseless death. It’s a purposeful death. I’m an old man anyway.” …
Of Putin, he said: “I think he’s evil.” And asked when a democratic Russia might emerge, he said: “That would be not very soon.”
That’s certainly an understatement. And I’m not at all sure that the rest of the west isn’t going in the Russian direction, too.
Interesting how the UK justice can’t manage to conduct a proper investigation of the wide-scale objectively known sex abuse in Rotherham but acts with such great alacrity in response to a (probably anonymous and highly suspect) tip that an (inconvenient) private citizen suddenly supposedly has porn on his computer … shortly after giving damning testimony.
And we have Trump praising Putin and Hillary who “reset” our relations with him. I want my Romney back.
“I’m not at all sure that the rest of the west isn’t going in the Russian direction, too.” neo
I share that concern. I think it quite possible that, even if to a lesser degree, this type of thing will occur under a Pres. Trump.
In Europe, there are moves to create an EU army and in Germany, Merkel is looking to prosecute those who oppose her policies.
AMartel,
An excellent point and highly revealing of their priorities.
expat,
I reluctantly voted for Romney, though not as reluctantly as I’ll vote for Trump. While unquestionably we would have been much better off with Romney than Obama, a Pres. Romney would have been just another bump on the road to the collective.
Trumps certainly not the answer but then no one is, proven by the elections of 2008, 2012 and now, with the ‘choice’ of Trump or Hillary…
Geoffrey,
I haven’t heard about Merkel’S threats to people who oppoose her. Her opposition consists of all sorts of people, some of whom are real neo-Nazis who set fire to homes for refugees. Opposing immigration doesn’t automatically put you in camp with sincere concerned citizens.
The messiah’s only lament upon exiting office is that he could not achieve Putin’s level of power and corruption.
Evil people get the evil they vote in. Shrugs.
Bukowsky is almost certainly innocent of course.
But you people have utterly lost the plot here in your little echo chamber.
At worst, Trump means chaos.
Parker, you like to throw in your grandchildren every now and then for extra effect. Who is more likely to foster a state (like the UK today) full of ‘child protection’ bureaucrats just itching to take them from their parents? Trump or Hilary?
Stop all this circle jerk sympathetic resonance emoting of some ill-defined ancestral hebe-jeebies about Trump and get some grasp of historical anomalies (Third Reich) vs. historical absolute effing bloody obvious sure as shit tendencies: like you know The Road To Serfdom.
Grow up, all of you. Especially you old farts who think you are the repository of civic virtues. You let the system go to shit on your watch. More humility would be in order please.
Oh lookie, our first visit from the paid Hillary troll. Complete with requisite insult !!!!
What a coincidence. That’s exactly the argument that my generation of baby boomers used to cavalierly sweep aside the arguments of our “old farts”.
Less callow arrogance please, your generation is doing even worse than we did, as in the aggragate it lacks any historical perspective whatsoever.
jesse jackson,
Please post a link to a recent personal photo. I, my children, and their spouses are curious to look upon your brilliant personage. However, mentioning my grandchildren in a jackass comment is far from welcome. Oh, and you and the horse you rode in on. If you do not recognize that idiom due to your obvious ignorance just google it and you will get the message.
I do believe our old friend from Hong Kong is back with a new moniker but the same give away language. hebe-jeebies – bloody obvious
No matter how hard one tries, one can’t disguise the bloody obvious British colonial superior than thou attitude, don’t you know old chap.
Especially you old farts who think you are the repository of civic virtues. You let the system go to shit on your watch. More humility would be in order please.
The Left is far more powerful than what the Red pill implies. You haven’t taken all of it yet, or even one yet.
MollyNH: We’re on the same side. I’m Pro-Trump because I believe that the system is utterly corrupted – headed past Diocletian and into a more Byzantine polity.
No offence… your heart is in the right place… but you’re not quite up there in literary comprehension or cultural literacy (have read some of your earlier posts).
Keep at it though. And I say this in all sincerity. You’re on the side of the not devils (wouldn’t call Trump any kind of Angel just yet).
Nope… not British. You Americans are charming though – as soon as anybody can write or utter moderately sonorous prose, must be British. No wonder Alistair Cooke had you all sewn up with his platitudes for so many years.
I’m leaving up “Jesse Jackson’s” comment only because so many of you replied to it.
He’s someone who’s been here before under a different moniker.
Freddy and Moses,
IMO you are kool-aid dreamers. It remains a more or less a free country… at least for a while, btw is it grape or fruit punch?
Neo, thank you for the posting. I had no idea! I am shocked and appalled.
@freddy, Addressing my shortcomings in “cultural literacy ”
Perhaps your comprehension of particulars regarding the topic
is what is lacking. Charming Euros they know it all.