Anti-Government Webmaster Shot Dead By Russian Police 513
J.Tatar and a number of other readers alert us to the shooting death of an anti-government webmaster while in police custody in Ingushetiya, a volatile province in southern Russia. Police took Ingushetiya.ru owner Magomed Yevloyev off a plane that had just landed in Ingushetiya. "Yevloyev ... was a prominent opponent of the pro-Kremlin president of Ingushetia, Murat Zyazikov [a close ally of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin]. Prosecutors have opened a preliminary manslaughter investigation after Yevloyev was shot in a police car in Narzan, the capital of volatile Ingushetia, a mostly Muslim region that borders Chechnya, Russian media reported. A spokesman for the prosecutor's office, Vladimir Markin, said 'an incident' took place after Yevloyev was taken into a police car 'resulting in a shooting injury to the head and he later died in hospital,' Interfax reported."
Re:Good thing he wasn't in... (Score:1, Interesting)
yeah, looks like the police are bashing doors down of possible subversives in Minneapolis. Thank god we are slighlty less storm trooperish here than in Russia.
Why the irrelevant factoid... (Score:5, Interesting)
Why is it relevant that Ingushetiya is mostly Muslim? What does that irrelevant factoid have to do with this news?
The only thing that I fear it is relevant for, is for the inevitable Kremlin propaganda offensive to paint themselves as defenders against the Muslim barbarians. A tactic that worked very well to get the Chechnyan separatists out of the Western news and gave Russia a free hand to do whatever they wanted in Chechnya.
Obligatory disclaimer: the Chechnyan separatists were bastards. That does not wipe out the strong suspicion that Russia played on fears of Muslim terrorism in the West for propaganda purposes.
Mart
Re:Don't jump to conclusions (Score:5, Interesting)
-1 naive
While it looks suspicious, and certainly goes along with the current wave of anti-Russian sentiment, I have to agree with the GP - let's wait for more information instead of jumping to conclusions.
While a Slashdot thread has a minor effect on overall public opinion, every single increment brings us closer to "accepting the inevitability" of an actual conflict with Russia - something which Bush and Putin would both seem to benefit from wrt power consolidation.
We're geeks, we have brains if we choose to use them - we can do better [metagovernment.org]. And yes, I am new here.
Re:'The shooting injury' (Score:3, Interesting)
the temple houses the reason center of the brain, the guaranteed kill is actually behind the ear, where the primitive autonomic systems rest.
Re:'The shooting injury' (Score:5, Interesting)
Magomed was arrested by some police forces of Nazran (capital of republic Ingushetia, Russia), he was taken away by a number of people, there were multiple police cars who participated in arrest. Later Magomed was found shot in the temple. The arrest was made after Magomed got off of an airplane. The airplane had president of Ingushetia, Murat Ziazikov on it as well. There was a group of cars belonging to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the republic in the airport, Magomed was arrested and put into one of the cars, half of the group has left and after this Magomed was killed. People were expecting him to get off the airplane and then killed him. Given the kind of people we are talking about, this was a premeditated murder.
Re:Don't jump to conclusions (Score:2, Interesting)
The practice of setting up straw dolls as a focus for enmity is hardly confined to recent history.
But many of those of us who lived through the Cold War, in the expectation that someone like Ronnie Ray-Gun was highly likely to push the button and blow us all to hell might not see this as such an increment.
Russia is not the same nation as it was in the '70s and '80s. It is nearly broke, and has a disorganised and ill-equipped military. Russia cannot afford a major conflict with the US or Europe, regardless of what bellicose rhetoric Putin might spout.
Re:Don't jump to conclusions (Score:3, Interesting)
Wow, this is the only "in Soviet Russia" joke I see right now, and it showed up about a half hour after the story was posted. Does this indicate progress for Slashdot or Slashdot's further decline?
The Bear will always be The Bear (Score:2, Interesting)
The Bear does things like shut off natural gas to Poland in the middle of the winter.
The Bear does things like shoot you (it's easier than shipping you to North Central Asia to build log bridges).
The Bear does things like running anti-aircraft artillery exercises during which they state that the target areas were the spaces between the aircraft flying the Berlin Airlift.
The Bear (or whatever local bumpkin minion) doesn't always think before acting (or thinks initiative might be rewarded). That's how KAL 007 got shot down: somebody finally decided they didn't want to take the heat for the thing being in the wrong place because SOMEbody was going to take the fall for it...
Now what are the Reaganites going to say.. (Score:3, Interesting)
There was Putin and his public dislike of all things US. The radioactive poisoning. Some FBI link to a SPAMMER inside of Russia but Putins government would not let US prosecutors go after them. The election where Putin creates a seat so he's still on top. More anti-US rhetoric. And more recently the Georgia incident where Putin is the one in the press on the first and second day. After that it is the acting President but it was pretty obvious Putin is da man.
Now a hole in the head of a webmaster while INSIDE a Police car. It all sounds like the old USSR and KGB era tactics to me. Well, it was good for some while it lasted. IMO
LoB
This kind of puts the damper on the whole "won the cold war for us" rhetoric..
now i guess it's "sprayed air-freshener over the diaper pail that was communist russia and claimed to his wife he had emptied it"
where are the apologists? (Score:5, Interesting)
those who say invading georgia is like the usa invading iraq?
where are those who say russia's invasion of georgia is the usa's fault?
it's all morally relative, right? we have to let russia do anything they damn well please, because the usa did something bad once, right?
i have a crazy idea: why can't we condemn them both?
why can't you condemn the usa, AND condemn russia?
given that, with all of the vitriol some of you found to fling at washington dc in recent years, why can't you fling some of that now at moscow?
or do crimes of war only stick to the west?
are you motivated by principles? or some weird geopolitical vendetta? (and therefore, part of the problem)
if you are motivation by principles, you must condemn russia now as hard as you condemn the usa
fight imperialism, wherever the fount
Re:Don't jump to conclusions (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Don't jump to conclusions (Score:3, Interesting)
Google turned up this article mentioning Kaloi Akhilgov from three weeks ago. Magomed Yevloyev is mentioned in that repeated calls to him went unanswered. Apparently the editor of ingushetia.ru [themoscowtimes.com] fled the country in the middle of July.
If anyone cares to read the article they'll find these paragraphs near the end:
Re:Don't jump to conclusions (Score:1, Interesting)
Godwin's point was never that the thread was over when Hitler or the Jews were trotted out (that came later), but that people should think before making the comparison.
An apt comparison is an apt comparison. You'll note the GP did not say identical to Nazi Germany during the holocaust, but Nazi Germany in 1930. He also justified that comparison.
Re:Don't jump to conclusions (Score:2, Interesting)
Anti-Russian sentiment? I assume you're referring to the Georgian conflict.
There's a big difference between wanting to help Georgia and being anti-Russian. Take the Korean war for example. While we fought, in a way, against the Chinese, it was in defense of Korea. There was no massive anti-Chinese sentiment (for the most part, MacArthur advocated invasion). Nobody wanted a giant conflict with China; few wanted the Korean war at all.
This incident may make us feel negative about Russian government, but in much the same way (though perhaps more significantly) we sometimes feel about our own government, or Germany's (for example), or any other country's. Upset, but not revolutionary. Besides, still immersed in middle eastern conflict, I don't think the American public is in any danger of going crazy and demanding an invasion of and/or nuclear war with Russia.
Re:Don't jump to conclusions (Score:3, Interesting)
As our great leaders have said to Russia time and time again in recent weeks, "The time for nations invading nations and deposing their leaders through force, are over."
(for countries not named U.S.A, anyway...we're not dangerous, we're just...helping. >_>)
Re:Same old Russia (Score:2, Interesting)
I have not in my lifetime seen any amount of guts displayed by the Europeans (or at least the Western ones) over any issue whatsoever. There is absolutely nothing that would lead me (or the Russians) to believe for a second that they would stand up and do anything of consequence. Hitler himself could reincarnate, and Europe would do the Neville Chamberlain thing all over again. And as for us in the US, I don't know that we'd really fight Russia over an Eastern European country. Just look what we did when the Russians rolled their tanks into Georgia. Still though, I suppose we sent aid and a few diplomats, military advisors and some military hardware. That's more than the rest of the Europeans did, as usual (and we also had the excuse of already being in two other wars).
Western Europe != France and Germany. The rest of Nato would likely back Eastern Europe. And the US would intervene to help once pictures of civillians getting blown to bits appeared on CNN. It took the world a while to act in Kosovo, but I think most of it would if the Russians actually attacked a Nato country.
Hell, I think even the French and Germans would fight once the rest of Nato did, they did in Kosovo.
This is strange (Score:5, Interesting)
Do jump to conclusions (Score:5, Interesting)
We don't know what happened, as nerds we should wait for more information instead of jumping to conclusions.
You're plain wrong, and just silly. The exact design of this assassination is:
You know exactly what happened, and that we can get away with it. Fear that.
Tu Quoque Fallacy (Score:1, Interesting)
Oh, yeah, I forgot about America right? Because a comparison between Russia and America is called for because America is more inherently evil AMIRITE?
You American-hating leftists who spin everything as "America is teh evil" ought to become familiar with the Tu Quoque fallacy. Here it is:
"Tu Quoque is a very common fallacy in which one attempts to defend oneself or another from criticism by turning the critique back against the accuser. This is a classic Red Herring since whether the accuser is guilty of the same, or a similar, wrong is irrelevant to the truth of the original charge. However, as a diversionary tactic, Tu Quoque can be very effective, since the accuser is put on the defensive, and frequently feels compelled to defend against the accusation."
Source: http://www.fallacyfiles.org/tuquoque.html
Re:Don't jump to conclusions (Score:1, Interesting)
This business with Georgia has been rather misreported, there has been an awful lot of winding up from both sides so it's a total grey area as to who's the bad guy.
I also think it would be very unwise of Bush or anyone else to enter into a game of political chess with them, Russians are nothing if not incredibly canny, and their sense of humour is very subtle. I wouldn't be surprised if they managed to provoke Bush into some massively stupid and akward international political situation just to prove a point.
Re:Why the irrelevant factoid... (Score:3, Interesting)
Why is it relevant that Ingushetiya is mostly Muslim? What does that irrelevant factoid have to do with this news?
AFAICT, the Kremlin has even less respect for Muslims than they do for the rest of the population. They committed massacres in Chechnya. Would they have done the same thing (on the same scale) to White Russian Christians? I doubt it. Hell, they're actually supporting the independence of two of the next-door provinces.
no. it IS naive (Score:3, Interesting)
anyone who would think that this was a real accident is thoroughly naive or stupid.
Re:Don't jump to conclusions (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Don't jump to conclusions (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes. I'm estonian. Let me to tell you a story. When i was a kid, I asked from my granny - where is my grandpa. My granny told me, that my grandpa died in a prison in Siberia. He was simple fisherman, who gave food to his relative who was seeked by russian police. Then I asked my father, where is my other grandpa. My other grandpa was forced to Red Army and was killed there. My mother in law was sent to Siberia by russians, when she was about 6, with her old grandma, because her mother wasn't cooperative enough. And this is the story of average estonian family. Of course i'm brainwashed by media!
And you think this makes you special? Most people in Europe will have sad stories to tell about the generations past. I could tell you stories just as sad about my (extended) family. Besides, let's not forget who bore the brunt of the brutality of the Soviet (and mostly Stalinist) regime -- the Russians themselves. Most Russians could tell you stories even sadder. So could a lot of Germans, Italians, Spaniards, Frenchmen, British, Jews -- and a lot of Arabs could tell you sob stories about stuff happening right now that our wonderful democratically elected governments are responsible for. Sorry, but sob stories don't make your misinformed opinions any more credible. Your russophobia, while wholly understandable, prevents you from taking any kind of an informed, objective stance on the matter.
You speak of the elections, and make an appeal to the majority opinion (in the West, anyway) -- "you don't honestly believe that Putin was fairly elected, do you?" Well, yes and no. Is 71% of the vote believable for a president who oversaw the largest increase in wealth that the public can remember? The Russian opposition is a joke that doesn't have a foot to stand on, especially as long as the standard of living continues its crawl upwards. I'm sure you'll bring up Kasparov -- who is equally a joke. Oh, certainly, he has made his little television tour through the United States and is thus very well-known in all the right circles, but there is zero substance to the man's "heroic struggle against fascism". He got locked up a few times for staging illegal protests. Illegal protests? But there's supposed to be free speech! Fascism! Not quite. I would suggest you google the fabled American "free speech zones".
You bring up the Russian media, and how it's supposedly government-dominated, but all anyone can ever say is that the three largest television networks are controlled by "Kremlin loyalists". So, apparently it's also fascism when someone who agrees with particular government policy controls a television network. Question: how many large networks are there in the United States, and who are they controlled by? Just how hard did they question, say, Bush' invasion of Iraq? But, you not only overstate the importance of these television networks, you also ignore everything else. I quote (it's a long-ish read): [atimes.com]
Discussions of the Russian media typically imply that state control is total, when in fact there are more private media in Russia today than at any time in its history.
In 1997 there were just over 21,000 registered periodicals, virtually no electronic media, and just under 100 television companies. More than half of all media were owned by the state. A decade later, there are more than 58,000 periodicals, 14,000 electronic media, and 5,500 broadcasting companies. The state's share in the newspaper and journal market in 2006 was estimated to be less than 10%, while its share in electronic media, which today reach 25 million people, is even smaller. Today it is not the Russian state but foreign companies that own shares in more than half of all Russian broadcasting companies.
Critics, however, have zeroed in on the one area of the media where the state's presence still predominates - national television. Through its control of seats