I was saddened to discover from this blog post that Nadezhda Tolokonnikova is currently (and, most likely, call me paranoid if you will, deliberately) unaccounted for in the Russian prison system. I have never met this woman, but I know she has a family, and friends, who love her and need to know she will be kept safe. I also know that she tried, with her fellow band-members, to bring to the world's attention the fact that their homeland might not be ideal. For which they are all being punished.
If you won't just bring this one tiny injustice to your world's attention, what do you expect other people to do for you when you need help?
The Russian state needs to understand that unless it chooses to give up any pretense of listening to public opinion then it must get used to the fact that it too is being watched. If you can't find time to help Nadezhda, who should find time to help you?
Of course if you'd rather just write computer programs then this is just another annoying whiney post in a long series. Whose number is, by now, doubtless legion, sorry about that. But when you need to find your significant other in the TSA miscreants' repository don't come round asking me for help.
You think this could never happen? I so hope you are right.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" -- Arthur C Clarke
Musings from the technological frontier
4 comments:
I got your point - countries where they don't allow you to dance in balaclava in monasteries and mosques are not ideal.
Steve, don't you think that mass-media campaign tries to steal away attention from some more important facts occurring inside the U.S. ATM?
@Anatoly: of course, many important issues are ignored as we (US people) point the finger at other countries. But that needn't stop us form sending out a helping hand abroad, need it? Isn't that what the Internet is for (as one of its manifold purposes)?
Almost everybody outside US really thinks that US should stop sending "helping hands".
For some reason US is more interested to quarrel with Russia over 1 person, and let hundreds of people die recurrently because of much worse conditions, because "US financial interests and national security aren't on stake".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc - see 13:48
@Anatoly: I'm not so sure Russia is a country "where they don't allow you to dance in balaclava in monasteries and mosques". Even if it were so, the only reasonable punishment for this is a money penalty or two days of prison, not two years. I don't want such disproportional cruelty to become normal in my country.
Finally, let's not kid ourselves. We both know what was the real reason for her punishment.
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