Regarding recent attacks against Carine Clément and other social militants in Russia (from Reclaiming Spaces)
Facts
13 November, 11 am: attack against Carine Clément, sociologist, director of the Independent Institute of Collective Action, member of the “Soviets Coordination Union of Russia” and committed to fight for the right to housing. On her way to a public meeting of a left-wing Muscovite movement, two young men stuck a syringe in her thigh. This is the third act of aggression against Carine Clément in two weeks, from 24 October, the day before the interregional action “Anger day” which saw the participation of movements from some 40 towns in Russia in a day of solidarity towards social rights. From 2005 Carine has actively supported, both as a sociologist and a militant, the development of independent social, citizen and trade union initiatives.
13 November, early morning, the riddled body of Mikhail Beketov, chief editor of the newspaper “Kimkinskaïa Pravda” and militant of the movement to save the Khimki forest (Moscow region) was found in the courtyard of his building. He is between life and death in the reanimation section of the hospital. For the past two years he has been fighting against destruction of forests and speculative building construction, as well as against local corruption of power.
13 November, 6.45 pm, attempted attack on Sergueï Fedotov, leader of the group supporting disenfranchised small land owners in the suburbs of Moscow. He was attacked by two young men with baseball bats. He managed to escape in his car. For the past 5 years, militants from this movement have carried out a fight to re-establish the right of property to the lands that were stolen after fraudulent privatisation.
The night of 13 to 14 November, at 1 am, Alexeï Etmanov, president of the independent trade union of the Ford factory in the St Petersburg region was attacked for the second time in one week. Prepared for attack, and with the help of several trade union comrades who were escorting him, he managed to stop the assault – with an iron bar – and to detain one of the aggressors, who was handed in to the police. Alexeï is known as one of the founders of the new Ford trade union, which carried out the longest and biggest strike in recent Russian history in November and December 2007.
A quick analysis
These facts are shocking since they coincide in time and touch people from different spheres of activity. But they are an illustration of the tendency in the last months of using criminal methods to solve social conflicts. Hundreds of militants more or less unknown, supporting housing, work, anti-corruption, environment or land rights were affected by these methods in most of the regions of Russia.
Yet they are not opponents of the regime, most of them are not even political militants. They are citizens who took the path of militancy to re-establish equity and equality of all in front of the law, to support self-dignity and defend violated collective rights. The strength of the money and power they fight against is starting to fight back. This means that the increasing wave of resistance cannot be contained only by corrupted justice, the partial usage of law or the discredit of the media. This also shows the degree of decline of the Russian system, hyper centralised, without real forces of opposition, without the possibility of real citizen control, consumed by massive corruption where “everything is allowed” becomes (again) the rule.
Reactions are big in Russia itself, where different initiatives of organisation, gathering and petition are taken. Below find the translation of the petition launched by the “Soviets Coordination Union of Russia” (SKS).
“Stop terror against social militants!”
Organised criminal attacks on leaders of social and trade union movements have multiplied lately. Amongst the most recent cases, we’ll identify the attacks on one of the leaders of the “Soviets Coordination Union of Russia”, Carine Clément; on the president of the Trade Union Committee of Ford, Alexeï Etmanov; on the leader of the movement to preserve the Khimki forest, Mikhail Beketov; on the leader of the movement for disenfranchised small land owners, Sergueï Fedotov. What is more, many militants fighting against speculative building constructions in big cities, and several trade union “disrupting” militants have also been victims. There are cases of murders, especially concerning anti-fascist militants.
It is not a coincidence, but an evident tendency – brutal force is used more and more against mobilising citizens who are trying to re-establish justice and defend their legal rights. Short of arguments, the powers against which they are fighting use criminal assault. Actors are different each time, of course, but the current tendency shows that in Russia the ideal conditions have formed for the development of this type of wild use of “social dialogue”. The rule of “no law” is prevalent, there is an absence of responsibility when the law is violated by people in or near power, massive corruption, hyper centralisation of power without any control from “below”. Most of these “political” affairs are not properly investigated, the responsible people are not identified and this gives the aggressors a feeling of impunity and provokes new criminal acts against militants.
We say: It’s enough!
We demand meticulous and efficient investigations concerning all attacks against social militants. Gathering all these facts into a particular category, creating a special unit in the Ministry of Home Affairs to investigate these cases, and a guarantee of fully informing the public during the investigation.
We demand that aggressors be sentenced to the penalties foreseen by law, regardless of the degree of power of their protectors.
We declare that violence and terror do not scare us, we will continue to fight for the social rights of the citizens and the country.
We are appealing to the State power, which positions itself as the warrant of “public order”, to command it to make this “public order” respected by all, including people of power. Because for the moment we are witnessing grandmothers and young militants being arrested during neighbourhood meetings, gatherings and strikes, while we hardly hear about the arrest of corrupt governors or arbitrary employers. Stop these discriminatory politics!
In these situations we affirm our right to self-defence. We will use all possible means to guarantee the security of our comrades.
On 15 September the petition is signed by hundreds of associations, trade unions, initiative groups and movements from different regions of Russia.
To add your signature, email info@ikd.ru
