The year has passed, I/we stayed

“I/we” is the main result and the conquest of the Golunov case. The main threat to the principle of “share and reign”, on which there is domestic policy in Russia.

Peter Manyakhin

A year has passed since the detention of the Medusa correspondent Ivan Golunov. Journalist Taiga.info Pyotr Manyakhin discusses the main lesson of fabricated business.

Exactly a year ago in Moscow, one of the best Russian journalists Ivan Kolunov was detained. This will become known only the next day. This often happens when the investigation needs to be “worked” with the suspect.

It often happens that people in Russia are thrown by drugs, that they plant for nothing that they beat in the police department - sometimes even to death. It often happens that they want to get rid of journalists in all possible ways. It often happens that the authorities openly lie, and state media assent them.

I deliberately write “happens” because it continues to this day. Rallies, pickets, open letters, a crowd of the court and endless questions to officials saved Golunov, but did not change anything. The liberalization of anti -drug legislation is the supreme “no”, and it is scary to even think about reforms in power structures.

We usually have so good, just here bad police officers put an honest journalist. We will punish bad policemen (six months later, after Putin’s direct instructions), and we will never touch the system.

“Our system is ideal, the problem of police violence is“ sharply ”, the quality of the investigation and control of it is the highest, and the courts are independent,” the press service of the particularly nasty department would say in response to a request for the conclusions of Golunov.

The fact that it was not possible to change the system is only half -worn. Customers of falsification of the case against Ivan were not found and are unlikely to be punished. Journalists are still undergoing pressure throughout the country. There are even special laws for this: about fakes, about disrespect for power, about the media-foreign agents. This is especially evident now, during the pandemic of coronavirus. Any information that is different from the official is either a fake or a “campaign to discredit power”, paid, of course, from the Soros, Khodorkovsky and Lucifer funds.

But all this only confirms that journalists are still afraid. The worst thing for any dishonest power right now is publicity. Until they write in the media, there will be no checks, no reaction. As soon as they write, they immediately decide everything, take a picture of the pointed beauty and announce the publication by fake. Well, at least so.

It is scary for the profession that it becomes a direct action mechanism. Journalists are deprived of the opportunity to be observers and chroniclers: they are either on banners, like Golunov and Ilya Azar , or under them, like the rest.

This is actually a different profession, but otherwise, it seems, it is impossible. Because “I/we” is the main result and the conquest of the Golunov case. Over the year, this principle has come from and so quite a solidarized journalistic community to lawyers , doctors and even police officers .

This is the main threat to the principle of “share and reign”, on which there is domestic policy in Russia. For everyone, their own image of the enemy: for employees of state television channels-a "corrupt journalist-foreigner", for independent media-"spraying saliva from the screen, a leading leader." By analogy, there are “Navalny-provocateurs” and “evil head physicians depriving payments”. There are “Ombudsmen of the police”, and there are “seals to the authorities”. There are "Cricks Lawyers" and "Investigation driven under the boot."

But the realization that this division is a myth is already beginning to go beyond the conventional trade unions. Justice is the main request, and everyone needs it. It remains to understand what word should stand after “I/we” so that everyone can subscribe to it.