Russia has detained 16,500 for anti-war protests in 6 months

RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS - In Brief 28 Aug 2022 by Alex Teddy

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On August 24 human rights group OVD Info published a report about the scale of state repression in Russia. The great majority of the arrests for expressing anti-war sentiments came in February and March 2022. Since then there have been very few demonstrations. Most of the arrests were in the two main cities. The law now makes it a crime punishable by 15 years in jail to criticize the war, call it a ''war'' or publish any information about the fighting that does not come from official government sources. However, lesser offenses have been punished with fines.  74 organizations have been branded foreign agents, and 15 have been designated undesirable. A foreign agent has to state that it is a foreign agent in all its publications and has to go through a very onerous accounting process. OVD Infor says that 7,000 websites were blocked in 2022. Many of them are Russian. They are blocked for publishing unapproved information about the war. The prosecutor general said that 138,000 websites were blocked or deleted in 2022. The anti-war movement has been very effectively contained by arrests and censorship. Sanctions have hurt the economy but not so much as to cause serious hardship to many people. That is why so few are demonstrating.