The days after my arrest
Diana lives in Saint-Petersburg. Since the 24th of February – when Putin started the war against Ukraine – she has demonstrated against war and for peace. She stands up against the Russian regime, risking her own freedom and her own physical integrity. On the 27th of February, she got arrested by the police. For TEMA Magazine, she reports on her personal experiences in Russia over the past few days.
Editor's note: Diana got arrested again on March 6th without taking part in a demonstration, this time. At the moment, she is waiting for her trial. The sentences in her case are about 10 to 13 days.
Diana in Saint-Petersburg
The days after the biggest anti-war demonstration on Sunday 27th of February, when I was arrested and sentenced with a fine, went quite the same: People continued to protest every day and the number of those detained increased to more than 8200 overall.
The government decides to react.
During the night of March 5th, the Russian Duma* fast-tracked a law of military censorship criminalising people for spreading what they would call “fake news” about the war in Ukraine but also for publishing any kind of agitation to attend demonstrations against the war. What is “interesting” about that is that the government proclaims their military aggression as “a special rescue operation”, while declaring everything else fake.
*Duma: In 1993, the Russian Federation replaced its old Soviet-era constitution with a new document that revived the name “State Duma” for the lower house of the newly created Federal Assembly (or Russian national parliament). The revived Duma consists of 450 members elected by universal suffrage to a four-year term. The revived Duma is the chief legislative chamber and passes legislation by majority vote. The Duma also has the right to approve the prime minister and other high government officials nominated by the president. (Britannica)
For instance, a huge variety of posts and articles are considered illegal now under this new legal regulation. Even online petitions signed by lots of people and sent to the government are being investigated and treated as a violation of the new legal regulations. (Petitions are a common way in Russia to state citizens’ opinions). People who are trying to change things peacefully are now officially considered extremists and the Centre for Combating Extremism* is starting to carefully watch all our social media as well.
Furthermore, the government blocked all independent media, too. Twitter is blocked, Facebook is blocked, Instagram is going to be blocked. Now mostly everyone uses a VPN** to get proper information.
**VPN: A VPN (virtual private network) is a service that creates a safe, encrypted online connection. Internet users may use a VPN to give themselves more privacy and anonymity online or circumvent geographic-based blocking and censorship. VPNs essentially extend a private network across a public network, which should allow a user to securely send and receive data across the internet. (Techtarget.com)
*Centre for Combating Extremism: The Centre for Combating Extremism, known also as Centre E, is a unit within the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation. Centre E functions as a secret police force. Their focus is the suppression extremism. (Wikipedia)
The punishments are overwhelming and the most scary part:
For “fake news” you can get up to 15 years in prison;
for agitation: Up to 3 years;
for agitation with a high impact: Up to 5 years.
I deleted some of my anti-war materials and changed my Instagram account to private. Although, if the Centre for Combating Extremism is going to be interested in me personally, and investigates my account, I will be in trouble for sure. My report of the protests suits these new legal regulations only by mentioning the word “war”. I’m not exaggerating.
This law can be applied to mostly everyone, actually.
The government takes action
From the morning of March 5th onwards, police were now allowed to search activists’ and court defenders’ apartments. Also, they have the right to search computers, phones and obviously other belongings. As I mentioned, for almost every post, or information saved, you can be imprisoned.
So, I woke up to the news of mass police searches. In our group chat for people that had been arrested at the same demonstration I had been to, my comrades started to write that the police were coming to their apartments. We were all charged with administrative offences. It seems that we've been watched by the government since. I got really scared and left my home for a while. After 2h I came back for 3 min to pick up some stuff. Exactly at this moment, the bell at my door rang! My heart stopped. Literally.
I’m really afraid of searches since my social media and private chats are very likely to be considered “extremist information” and with a search, the police have the right to confiscate my phone and investigate it. I turned off the light and lay on the floor so as not to make any noises – like no one was home. My neighbours next door came to speak to the police. It appeared to be the local district police officer who wanted to warn everyone to not go to tomorrow's demonstration. As I found out later, they record you on video, and you’re made to sign a special document claiming you’re not attending any further demonstrations. I heard the complete dialogue through the door. It didn’t turn out bad this time. For now. Although, my nerves are wrecked.
The government acts unpredictably
You can’t predict when exactly the government will apply punishments against citizens. You can’t be safe. Somehow, It’s just luck if you get into trouble or not.
All in all, police came with a search warrant to about 50 addresses during the day, in Saint-Petersburg alone. I haven’t seen information about how many they served with a warning, but it must be a truly huge number.
This was just the first day of the new legal regulation. Most likely, tomorrow during the next demonstration, when protesters are getting caught, this law will justify a high number of arrests.