Ivan Golunov, an investigative reporter at Meduza, has been arrested in Moscow | Hacker News Reader

Ivan Golunov, an investigative reporter at Meduza, has been arrested in Moscow

twitter.com

Having worked in Meduza as CTO for 4 years, I have a rather thick skin on this matters. However, this particular shitshow really pissed me off.

Ivan Golunov is one of the best investigative journalists in Russia and have crossed so many powerful people that he is SUPER CAREFUL about abiding the law. I have heard he was working on the FSB corruption lately.

Now police arrests him, beats him, denies lawyer for hours and then says he had 10 kilo heroin in his apartment. They want to put him in prison for 10-20 years. This is insane even by Russian standards.

Fuck this regime.

> Now police arrests him, beats him, denies lawyer for hours and then says he had 10 kilo heroin in his apartment.

How likely is it, that Ivan Golunov was targeted for his latest report, which was published the next day after his arrest[1]?

> This is insane even by Russian standards

No, that's not insane by Russian standards at all. At least he is still alive, unlike some of his colleagues[2]:

"The day before his fall, Borodin told his friend that he had seen armed, camouflaged men near his flat. Following this, he attempted to find a lawyer. Later, however, Borodin called his friend again and said he had made a mistake, and that he thought the men had been taking part in some kind of training exercise."

What I cannot understand, is why would anyone choose such a job without leaving Russia for one of the Baltic states first.

Is the "List of journalists killed in Russia"[3] not long enough already?

[1] https://meduza.io/en/feature/2019/06/07/the-evictors

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Maksim_Borodin

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_...

It's the difference between exit and voice. I can perfectly well understand that many people may love Russia and it's culture, and hate the politics, so much that they're willing to die to change the politics. I'm sure they would rather not, but they appreciate the risk.

I can imagine that to readers, a journalist reporting from abroad looks less earnest, or perhaps readers think they are more susceptible to control by foreign interests. To the journalist, he or she can't interview Russians. And unfortunately, the Baltics wouldn't be much more safe for the determined state anyway.

>How likely is it, that Ivan Golunov was targeted for his latest report, which was published the next day after his arrest[1]?

"June 8, 2019" is the translation date, the original report was published on 17 May (https://meduza.io/feature/2019/05/17/vyselyatory).

Insane by Russian standards? In comparison to over a hundred of journalists who disappeared only to be discovered in separate body parts later, he got it easy.

Unlike journalists working in smaller newspapers, without international notoriety, and not stationed in foreigner packed Moscow, he had his high profile giving him a relative peace of mind.

In Vladivostok, on other hand, no independent journalist left. All and every journalist who did his job since nineties is either missing (dead) or wrapped up on upon own volition.

The Western media, and the few remaining "museum exhibit" self-censored "free" media do a great disservice to our cause by validating that "not so extreme" image of itself the Kremlin wants the world to see.

The ruling regime is great at manipulating its image in the West. One thing they do is managing how much they frighten the West. They really want Western elites to believe that the Kremlin is being ran by some soft bodied, inept bureaucrats trying to play junta, instead of seeing them as who they really are.

>>Now police arrests him, beats him, denies lawyer for hours and then says he had 10 kilo heroin in his apartment.

First I thought why would FSB do away with 10 kilos...but then remembered that the kilos will be put back in circulation. Hey, at least he's alive (but sometimes that's not any better)

What 10 kg of heroin are you talking about?! Initially they said they found 5g of mephedrone, then cocaine (probably after they realized no successful man would be able to abuse mephedrone and still be successful).

They even posted 9 (IIRC) photos on an official, government site for ministry of internal affairs that they claimed were taken in Ivan's apartment. Only I've of them was taken there. Later they acknowledged this as an error. And then these guys want us to oblige fake news laws? This IS fake news. On an official site.

Not to mention an awful lot of procedural blunders in his case.

So, what 10 kg (!) of heroin (!!)? Source or GTFO.

I was born in one of ex-Soviet republics and lived in Russia for a bit in the 90s and on one hand I'm surprised that people tolerate this level of bullshit, but on the other hand I can see why they do. Russian government basically needs to ensure that the quality of life is a tad better than what it was in the 90s to keep most people docile. Russians have been through so much shit that they can endure anything and the government is basically taking advantage of this and does whatever it wants in plain sight. This absurd submissiveness even has its own term in Russian - Vata (literal translation is cotton), which basically implies you're so soft, submissive and brainwashed that you ultimately don't care what happens to you as long as your basic, fundamental needs are met. However, the new generation of Russians is completely different and have no interest living in stagnation, deprived of future for themselves and their children, but man, the wall is so tall at this point it's hard to see what they can achieve. I really believe that not much is going to change in Russia until the Soviet generations die out, as sad as it may sound.

As one ex-Soviet to another, I think you are being too optimistic. The situation in smaller cities seems to be quite dire to me. Most of the people I know either don't know of the situations like this, or don't care. They still have some freedom of information, some level of access to "alternative" worldviews, but they prefer not to exercise it and to get their daily dose of brainwashing from RT and Russia 24.

For example, to most of my acquaintances Navalny is known as "the guy who stole the timber".

Honestly, I am not at all sure if Russia is still salvageable. I've been reading some of the classic literature from 18-19 centuries, and it reads like it was written yesterday.

I am thinking of just leaving as far away as I can from all this fucking bullshit, before the iron curtain comes crashing down.

As someone from Central Asia, allow me to correct you. The only people who matter are those who who live in the capitals and the biggest cities. As soon as people in Moscow start getting disappointed in the "system", the regime will quickly collapse.

News stories:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48566028

https://meduza.io/en/feature/2019/06/07/what-we-know-so-far-...

It is remarkable how they incriminate him 5.37 grams of cocaine. This is 0.37g over "massive possession" legal threshold, but not even by a whole gram as to not hit too hard on some officer's private stash.

"Doctor treating @meduzaproject ’s Ivan Golunov says he may have broken ribs, a concussion and a hematoma. All likely sustained while he was in custody. Police won’t allow him to be hospitalized or have an X-ray."

That's just abhorrent.

This is just modern Russia.

And just for people not from Russia - you don't really need to be an investigative journalist for the police to put you behind the bars, then to put 5+ grams of cocaine somewhere into your apartment and 228 you. All you need is a sucker who needs to meet the quota or a cunt who wants a bit of cash as bribe. As simple as that.

Too bad this actual journalist doesn't have celebrities queuing up to advocate on his behalf. This sounds like a classic frame-up. https://meduza.io/en/feature/2019/06/08/moscow-police-say-iv...

So ironic Meduza is operating from Latvia.

Meduza focusing more on Russia proper, I'm not aware of any decent quality local Russian language news media in Latvia. That leaves a large part of the population exposed to "news" worse than Fox News. That is not a healthy situation...

The _local_ news media in Latvia are mostly bad quality. Apart from ir.lv and small initiatives like rebaltica.lv, that is. Those are both Latvian language. The biggest newspapers diena.lv and nra.lv are both linked to local oligarchs. Quite ironic, especially when you know that nra translates to _independent_ morning news...

P.S. If anyone can point me towards decent quality Russian language media in Latvia, I'd be really grateful!

It’s a question of an addressable market population, sadly :(

> If anyone can point me towards decent quality Russian language media in Latvia, I'd be really grateful!

What about https://rus.delfi.lv/ ?

Thank you for your comment. Delfi's not too bad indeed, for a web news portal. Probably the best available.

I should have clarified that with "decent quality", I meant things like original investigative journalism and a verifiable ethics policy. Delfi falls short on the first and I'm not entirely sure about the second...

Very sad to read about this. I actually didn't realize that Russia still had any free press.

Meduza is located in Latvia, only some of its journalists are in Russia.

In the fading days of the Soviet Union they put away dissidents in insane asylums where they were pressured into giving up their USSR citizenship and leaving for the West. While inhumane, no one ever got beaten or treated as poorly as the modern Russian police treats its opponents. That was partially why 1991 was a bloodless revolution, the USSR mostly abided by its own laws, minus the democracy part. I have a feeling history will judge the current regime worse than the Communists.

USSR was not abiding it’s own laws. There was even a common saying by dissidents reading exactly ‘abide your own laws’ :(

The situation is actually quite a bit more subtle. The most "lawful" periods in the Soviet Union were during the Khrushchev and Andropov times. Brezhnev's period (esp. th last days of it) was a a complete mess, when the Soviet police acquired enormous power and felt hey can do anything the want, especially in Moscow. Yet KGB was indeed quite bit less dirty than FSB.

Totalitarian countries always don't like the journalists, nothing new. Khashoggi and many others deals needs a good court.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com