ECHR On Crimea

From the MT:
"ECHR to Rule on Prison Term for Criticizing Crimea Annexation"

Rafis Kashapov, an activist from Russia's republic of Tatarstan, has filed a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in Strasbourg, challenging the sentence he was handed for voicing his disagreement with the annexation of Crimea in 2014, the Kommersant newspaper reported Tuesday.  This is the first time the ECHR will evaluate the legitimacy of prosecuting people for publicly criticizing the annexation of Crimea.  Kashapov, an activist with nationalist views, was arrested in December 2014 for his posts on social media criticizing the annexation and voicing hope that Ukrainian territorial integrity would be restored.  According to the Federal Security Service (FSB) officers that investigated Kashapov's case, with these postings the activist “was forming a negative attitude toward Russia's actions in Crimea in 2014. Ignoring the will of Crimean residents that they expressed during the referendum in March 2014, he was forming an opinion about the territory of Crimea being adjoined illegally.”  The activist was charged with calling for a violation of Russia's territorial integrity and sentenced to three years in a penal colony in September 2015.  On Monday he filed a formal complaint to the ECHR, in which he accused Russian authorities of “unreasonably expanding” the definition of calling for a violation of territorial integrity, and classifying a publicly made statement about the illegality of the Crimean annexation as such, Kommersant reported.  The complaint also points out that a prison term is too severe a punishment for what might be considered an abuse of freedom of speech.

^ Regardless of what the ECHR states Russia won't abide by it. Unfortunately, Russia today doesn't care about human rights, basic freedoms or international law. They have become as hypocritical today as the Soviet Union was. The USSR was a "worker's paradise" with tight censorship, food rationing, lack of basic necessities, gulags/hard labor camps/mental institutions for dissidents and anyone non-Communist. The USSR imposed its ideology and military might on the world (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Hungary, Poland, Yugoslavia, Albania, Bulgaria, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Cuba, North Korea, Afghanistan and numerous other countries in Africa, South/Latin America and Asia.) The USSR used armed conflict to force people into their "paradise": East Germany (1953), Hungary (1956), Czechoslovakia (1969), Afghanistan (1979-1989.) The USSR collapsed because it spent more on its military than on its people or economy. Modern-day Russia has been tightening its censorship, they still have the hard labor camps (penal colonies.) They have imposed their ideology and military might on the world (Georgia, the Ukraine, Syria and other countries,) Russia has used armed conflict in: the Crimea, eastern Ukraine, Georgia and Syria. They have made themselves more isolated from the international world including banning food, medicines, etc. that the people need. Russia is spending more on its military now then on its people or economy. History is bound to repeat itself especially when those in power are making the same exact mistakes as in their more-recent past. The saying: "Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it" rings true. Maybe it's because Soviet/Russian history is changed all the time and no one knows what is true or not anymore. The fact is that Russia was a dictatorship under the Czars, the Soviet Union was a dictatorship under the Communists and modern-day Russia is becoming a dictatorship under Putin. Putin is a bad liar especially in the 21st Century. He will lie to your face about Russia having no one in the Crimea even though the whole world sees concrete evidence that they are and then months later he will simply admit that Russia had been planning to invade, occupy and annex the Crimea long before any "vote" by the Crimean people and that Russian troops had been in the Crimea all along. I don't know if he actually thinks he is fooling the world (of course he can fool most Russians, especially those inside Russia, since he controls everything they are told) or if he just thinks he is so great and powerful that he doesn't care. Either way, he is leading the Russian people to much harder times. ^

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/echr-to-rule-on-prison-term-for-criticizing-crimea-annexation/555556.html