Punishing Dissenting Voices

Punishing Dissenting Voices

by | Dec 28, 2023 | Society and Politics

In the U.S., we enjoy the protections of the First Amendment, particularly around political speech –– talking or writing about the wrongs that government and its agencies do. In Russia, as in many other autocratic legal/political systems, dissent is punished by the government, often severely.  Punishing voices of dissent in Putin’s Russia is perfectly legal, and in fact some Russian citizens believe it is their duty to root out dissent as some sort of “infection” that could poison the body politic.

But the December 27 podcast from the New York Times, The Daily, spells out just how debilitating that punishing dissent can be.

Here are the first two paragraphs from that podcast episode:

“Days after Russia invaded Ukraine, the Kremlin made it a crime to oppose the war in public. Since then, it has waged a relentless campaign of repression, putting Russian citizens in jail for offenses as small as holding a poster or sharing a news article on social media.”

“Valerie Hopkins, an international correspondent for The Times, tells the story of Olesya Krivtsova, a 19-year-old student who faces up to 10 years in prison after posting on social media, and explains why the Russian government is so determined to silence those like her.”

Here’s the link to the podcast:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/27/podcasts/the-daily/russia-dissent-update.html

Most readers of this PLBW blog are likely to have a “Western” view of Russia’s war against Ukraine.  But unlike the Russian government’s “official line,” it is  a view that is in line with international legal doctrine around “sovereignty” and “self-determination,” key concepts underlying the U.N. Charter from 1945.  Indeed, until Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, no major power since 1945 has invaded another sovereign nation.  (This excludes the brief foray that Saddam Hussein made into Kuwait back in 1991, an attempt that was quickly repelled by a coalition of the willing, headed by U.S. President George H.W. Bush.)

Punishing free speech can be harmful to a society for several reasons. Punishing free speech can stifles dissent and creates a culture of conformity, inhibiting necessary checks and balances in a well governed society.  It allows those in power to stay in power, even when they abuse power, by controlling the narrative and limiting access to different perspectives and information that is unfavorable to the regime.  Free speech is essential to a functioning democracy, as it allows citizens to engage in robust political discourse, and free speech powers change where change would be beneficial for society. By punishing free speech, Putin and other autocrats avoid being accountable for their actions, avoiding true scrutiny and the eventual imposition of a just decision by the citizens.

Punishing free speech is part and parcel of the authoritarian’s playbook. Even in nations considered “democracies,” free speech for the press and for the people can be limited. In Hungary, for example, Victor Orban  has successfully limited freedom of speech and the press, which is now largely controlled by Orban’s ruling party.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/21/hungary-draconian-new-law-can-be-used-to-punish-orban-critics-us-warns?ref=upstract.com

In the U.S., there are many on “the right” who admire and would emulate Victor Orban, who is close to Vladimir Putin. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/19/magazine/viktor-orban-rod-dreher.html#:~:text=For%20American%20conservatives%2C%20the%20appeal,%E2%80%9CChristian%20values%E2%80%9D%20of%20Europe.

And, from a Reuters report in October, 2023:

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his closest ally among European Union leaders, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, on Tuesday reaffirmed their commitment to bilateral ties amid international tensions over the war in Ukraine.

In the U.S., many in the GOP are following Donald Trump’s lead in holding back aid for Ukraine, essentially playing into Putin’s hands.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/12/ukraine-russia-aid-biden-zelenskiy

Finally, as we marvel at how much moral courage it takes for Russians to oppose an authoritarian,  we must recognize that many people in the U.S. now use the Supreme Court’s quite liberal interpretations of the First Amendment to say outrageous and false things about the U.S. government, or U.S. elections.

Also, there are ongoing debates in the U.S. over how far “free speech” should go.  In future blogs, we’ll discuss “hate speech” and whether the U.S. legal system allows hate speech that is perfectly legal, but wrong.

Brittany Griner’s “Wrongful Detention”

Brittany Griner’s “Wrongful Detention”

by | Jul 8, 2022 | Global Ethics

Russia has detained Brittany Griner, a WNBA all-star, and charged her with possession of hashish oil, found in her baggage by drug sniffing dogs at a Moscow airport.  She was on her way to join a Russian basketball team –– UMMC Ekaterinburg ––before their season started; she would not have been going to Russia if the WNBA paid salaries anywhere comparable to the NBA. In Russia, Griner earns four times her Phoenix Mercury salary, but only one-fortieth what LeBron James earns from the NBA annually. (Some will say –– and it’s always been perfectly legal to say really dumb things in the U.S. –– that the Biden Administration would have seen a way to get LeBron James back to the U.S. if he were caught in Russia with drugs for personal use.  This ignores how cold and distant the U.S. and Russia have become since the Ukraine invasion, with the U.S. already applying historically strict sanctions on Russia; it also ignores that LeBron wouldn’t have been playing in Russia in the first place. It’s only perfectly legal gender discrimination to be paying women less for almost everything.

As of July 7, Ms. Griner pleaded guilty and asked the court for mercy; the penalty could be as much as ten years in prison.  President Biden has said that the detention is unlawful,  and has promised to do all in his power to get her back to the U.S. Protests against her arrest and detention have circled the globe, and yet, Russia’s actions could also be described as “perfectly legal.”  But also wrong.  Read on.

The NY Times excellent podcast, The Daily, has an excellent account of the moral dilemmas at the heart of the Brittany Griner’s case. In sum, it’s clear that the Kremlin is leveraging her detention into a kind of hostage situation, looking to bargain with the U.S. over the release of one or more Russians incarcerated in the U.S.  In this podcast, she is correctly described as a “political pawn” on the global chessboard.

Such bargaining –– and holding hostages as “political pawns” –– is not contrary to customary international law.  Iran held 52 U.S. embassy personnel hostage and citizens for 444 days, and never faced legal consequences; there were political consequences, of course, but not legal ones. Hostage holding mirrors a kind of “might makes right” perspective: it might not be right or fair, but Russia might get the U.S. to release an imprisoned arms dealer whose clients were terrorists and other malevolent actors.

The arms dealer in question, Victor Bout, is also known as “the Merchant of Death.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/us-exchange-brittney-griner-russian-arms-dealer-known-merchant-death-rcna36990

There is nothing illegal about any of this, but the raw exercise of power and leverage “just because you can” is nothing new; but it will almost always be ethically wrong.