In October 2017-January 2018 five young anti-fascists living in the city of Penza and three living in St. Petersburg were detained on the charge that, according to the FSB, they allegedly created a terrorist organization and were preparing terrorist acts in Russia. All eight were tortured with electric current in an attempt to force them to “confess”. Three of them--Viktor Filinkov, Dmitry Pchelintsev and Iliya Shakursky made statements about their torture. Recently it became known that one more young antifascist, Yuly Boyarshinov, has been arrested in St. Petersburg as part of this case. http://www.vbirstein.com/is-the-year-1937-back-in-russia-part-ii-of-the-fsb-network-case/
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Two days before the court session, parents of the accused wrote down statements of their children in the SIZO-1, ..including he following:
I made a statement about the torture applied to me and rejected my testimony. In response FSB officers together with the NTV channel staff put pressure on my mother and the mother of Armen Sagynbaev. I’m not a terrorist, so I do not agree with this charge. For this I will be given an even longer term. I will defend my honor and dignity in court, but I have no chance. I know it, but I’m ready to stand up for my honor, freedom and love of my loved ones. Someone should. They call us a “Network.” They accuse us because we had the imprudence to adhere to have political views which are not always consistent with the official line. Some of us were known by other participants in the process and that’s why they are singled out as organizers. Some were known not by everybody, so they are singled out as participants. . ...We are called terrorists, but we reject violence as a method of solving problems.
Unfortunately life teaches us that the violence of the government institutions against persons who are not connected with these institutions is the only working mechanism of human relationships. They can turn any absurdity into reality, such as accuse a group of people who have families and loving wives, work and education, who have served in the army, as terrorists. They can call black as white, freedom — slavery, peace — war. Utopia will drown us. But we will not die in vain. 5-20 years in a Russian prison is akin to death without a chance of employment after that and a normal return to the society.
We will defend what we do not have, to achieve what cannot be achieved. We were tortured in peacetime in accordance with military standards for the fact that one of us called himself an anti-fascist, another, an environmentalist, and someone was just familiar with us. We became victims of the lack of responsibility in the echelons of power, our allegations of torture have not been investigated and will not be investigated until President [Putin] orders it... And we will sit and fight for less use of torture in Russia. For Russia to have a system of democratic counterweights, both in power and in law enforcement agencies. http://www.vbirstein.com/is-the-year-1937-back-in-russia-part-iii-of-the-fsb-network-case/
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In Omsk, I took part in animal rights events — film screenings and rallies . In 2014, I was an active supporter of the Maidan protesters in Kyiv, I was speaking out against the annexation of Crimea and the incursions of the Russian army into Ukrainian territory. I attended rallies organised by the local authorities to “celebrate the return of Crimea” with a Ukrainian flag and yellow and blue balloons. This is how I tried to troll the participants of these events. As a result, I was threatened and on time policemen, including agents from Centre “E” [Centre for Countering Extremism], tried to detain me, but I managed to escape.
In 2016, after another quarrel with my parents caused by our political differences, I decided to leave and move to St Petersburg, to join my friend Viktor Filinkov. I met Filinkov through my brother (they were course mates at university) in Omsk in 2014. We became friends because of our shared beliefs. Together with Viktor, we attended many opposition events, including against the annexation of Crimea and the war in Eastern Ukraine, as well as animal rights events. In 2016, Filinkov left for St Petersburg and got a job there, but we stayed in touch.
On my way from Omsk to St Petersburg,I decided to stay with some friends in Penza — Filinkov had some temporary troubles with money and accommodation. I arrived in Penza in December 2016. I was 16 years old then. My friends helped me to find a job and a place to live. I was hanging out with local political activists, anti-fascists and anarchists. I knew Egor Zorin, Dmitry Pchelintsev [suspects in the “Network” case], Maxim Ivankin, Mikhail Kulkov and other local activists. We were playing Airsoft together and walking in the forest — collecting rubbish, sitting around the fire.
Around the end of February or the beginning of March 2017, Zorin was detained. An acquaintance invited him over, and then during that meeting he, according to Zorin, constantly left to make some calls. After one of the calls, a group of men stormed into the flat, they introduced themselves as FSB agents, a typical “maski-show” [a raid by masked security agents] followed. They found some weed in the flat and started putting pressure on Zorin, claiming that the drugs belonged to him. They told him that his acquaintances who were in the flat had already started giving evidence against him. Then they offered him a “solution”: to cooperate with the FSB and follow their orders, collect information for them and pass it on to them in a timely fashion. The agents were asking about Islamic terrorists, and were saying that there were recruiters at the university [Penza State University], where Zorin was studying. They explained that if he agreed to cooperate, they would close down their investigation into drugs in the flat, but if he refused — they would lock him up on a maximum sentence. Zorin agreed, signed necessary documents and then was released.
Next day he met his friends and told them what happened. It was obvious from how he looked that he was scared and didn’t know what to do. A week later Zorin said that the FSB agents had another conversation with him: they met him next to his apartment block and put him in a car. An agent was asking questions about left-wing activism and also asked whether Zorin knew any activists. Three weeks later I was arrested. https://rupression.com/en/2018/06/23/anti-fascist-teenager-reveals-how-russian-security-services-brutally-beat-and-tortured-him/
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On November 24, 2016, the Moscow human rights group, “Memorial”, published a book on the web, authorized by the “Memorial” member Andrei Zhukov, entitled “Staff of the State Security of the USSR. 1935-1939”. This reference book includes biographies of 39,950 NKVD (People’s Interior Affairs Commissariat) officers who were promoted to special state security ranks from 1935 to mid-1939.
For 15 years Zhukov painstakingly collected information and filled cards, starting before the era of computers and databases. In the end he has set for himself the task of gathering information about all state security officers who received special state security ranks introduced in 1935, shortly before the Great Terror It was not only the staff of the Main State Security Directorate [of the NKVD involved] but also representatives of other structures for the prosecution of so-called “enemies of the people.” http://www.vbirstein.com/2016/11/25/names-of-nkvd-tortures-and-executioners-from-1935-to-1939-are-exposed/
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Every Guru is concerned for the blessed chela--that he make it all the way home, else the path should be in vain. Therefore you must be concerned for the chela you do not yet know, for the master you are to become--that even now you are forging a torch that you will one day pass. And when it comes time to pass the torch there will be no time to say “Wait a minute, I must create the torch.” The torch must be there and burning. The torch of Gautama Buddha, Clara Louise and our own beloved Lanello were there--just seven weeks before his ascension. That very year of 1973 Summit University opened on a full-time basis--out of that torch. And all who have passed through its halls are free to ratify the will of God and receive one petal of the torch, one petal-flame that becomes a nucleus of your own torch to be passed in the hour and the appointing.
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