Kasparov Arrested By Russian Police 374
New submitter perdelucena writes "Former world chess champion Garry Kasparov was arrested outside a Moscow court, where the verdict in the trial of the Pussy Riot group members was being announced on Friday, Russian police said." Update: 08/18 01:14 GMT by T : Kasparov has written an account of the arrest.
not the first time (Score:5, Informative)
Here's a 2007 /. story [slashdot.org] on a previous arrest.
Re:um... ok? (Score:5, Informative)
3 reasons: ..." jokes is obvious.
1. He's a chessplayer, which necessarily makes him a giant nerd. Hence news for nerds.
2. This is stuff that matters, especially if you're Russian.
3. The potential for "In Capitalist Russia
The importance of grouping (Score:5, Informative)
The reporting on this mentioned protesters outside holding signs that translated to "Free Pussy Riot". They didn't comment on whether they meant "Free (Pussy Riot)" or "(Free Pussy) Riot".
Chess less relavent than politics (Score:5, Informative)
Video (Score:4, Informative)
BBC video of the arrest:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19300149 [bbc.co.uk]
Rough transcription: "What are you doing? I'm being detained? What am I charged with? What am I charged with? What am I charged with? What am I charged with? What am I charged with? What am I charged with?"
Re:THIS IS PERFECTLY OK (Score:4, Informative)
How about the poisoning of Viktor Yushchenko? We can go on all day. Russia didn't become some nice delightful place governed by law abiding men just because the USSR collapsed.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:um... ok? (Score:5, Informative)
Well, yes, but no. Google "petukhi". Google "Mikhail Khodorkovsky". Google "Sergei Magnitsky".
You should care because they will spend that time in the worst-of-the-worst "black" prisons. They will endure daily rape, by both fellow inmates and staff. They will leave (if they leave) with HIV and/or multi-drug resistant TB. They will most likely not leave... Or last a week, for that matter.
The court didn't need to sentence them to any crazy-long sentence, because the court sentenced them to death and hell. Simple as that.
Re:Checkmate. (Score:0, Informative)
Christ. Reading this mess is like asking 5th graders about politics.
I'm going to keep this short because I can't be bothered repeating this in detail anymore. By definition, from Marx and Engels both, Communism is 'the stateless society that emerges after socialism gives way to direct democracy'. Ignoring the obvious contradiction between direct democracy and statelessness, consider simply direct democracy as the definition. That is not what the USSR was, not even close. It was socialist for the most part. It only flirted with abolishing money entirely for a few years in the 20s, so for the most part an accurate description of their social ordering was that there were small pockets of peaceful voluntary cooperation and exchange(ie: free markets) operating within a significantly violent ordering of the means of production by a central authority.
None of this is defense for the viability of communism. I just want to help correct the use of definitions.
Oh, and saying that corporations own the US government is like saying favored shop keepers own their local mafia. It is completely backwards and utterly ridiculous. This economic fascism(corporatism to use a newer definition describing the nominal private ownership of the means of production directed by the state) is a function of our government, the ones with all the guns, not those that pay off our government to point them somewhere else. Just imagine the power disparity between one institution and the other. Saying these insignificant corporations own the government is an obvious distortion of the truth to shift blame away from the violent actor(the state) to the one benefiting from the violence(the corporation). They are certainly not blameless, not because they own this vast state, but rather because they actively participate with it. That is a far more accurate description of events.
Re:Smart people are dangerous (Score:5, Informative)
The issue is that Christian faith generally teaches one to be humble and modest. Even more specifically, "it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God". We kinda expect the clergy to live what they preach.
And some do. For example, the late patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church, Pavle, would ride a bus [blogspot.com] or walk on the street [blogspot.com], without fancy clothing other than what's required from him by his rank. Meanwhile, the current patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, Kirill, rides a black limo [blogbuster.ru] with a special flag and license plate (so that he doesn't get stopped by the cops when he goes twice the speed limit).