Translated material
About tents
Recently, “Nashi” propaganda from the series “and they also hang blacks” has been circulating on the Internet with a selection of crackdowns on demonstrations in the West. They say, before you even have time to utter a word, they will immediately knock you over the head, put you in shackles, burn out your eyes with pepper and beat you with a baton. It’s clear that Borya and Kristina don’t pay their gopniks well, and they don’t have money to go see with their own eyes how things are going in reality, so they post all sorts of garbage, which is also aimed at people who have not left central Russia. Anyone who has ever traveled to the Czech Republic can clearly imagine the differences between the police there and here, as they say.
I have been involved in demonstrations, rallies and strikes. In France, I found myself in the last well-known storm, when traffic was paralyzed throughout almost the entire country. Nowhere and never has there been such idiocy and police brutality as in Russia, of course. Today, Evgenia Chirikova was once again detained on Red Square. For trying to set up a tent. A couple of personal photos from America on this occasion.
Here are the residents of Washington (with the money of the Washington Regional Committee, obviously) protesting against something there. The police are simply escorting them, and nothing more.
Disperse the picket? No, I haven't heard.
And this woman had been in prison for almost six months at the time of my arrival. In a tent. Directly opposite the White House. A journalist has come to see her and is interviewing her. As we see, the slogans, according to our standards, are quite extremist. One poster “The real terrorist is Bush” is worth it.
By lunchtime, the second one came up to her, stood next to her and began to beat the tambourine against something of her own.
What about the police? She probably immediately rushed to close the square in front of the White House, line up in chains and push everyone onto the roadway, shouting “do not interfere with the passage of citizens”? Not really. It stands and does its job of ensuring safety. Including the safety of protesters. Citizens of the country are equal in their rights and are free to express their opinions freely.
As we can see, the area in front of the White House is open. If you offer Russian know-how - blocking off squares from protesters and locking them up - I think you will simply be offered to undergo treatment in a hospital, perhaps even at state expense, like a clinical idiot, and that will be the end of it.
The square is open, people are walking, protesting, holding rallies and generally living. The White House, as we see, is about a hundred meters away. There is no ten-meter brick wall. You can climb onto the fence, stick your head, hands, camera through the bars and click.
Yes, the feeling that there is a camera in every tree and a machine gun in every hollow is certainly one hundred percent. But ensuring the security of the head of state does not affect your personal freedom in any way.
By the way, while I was taking pictures there, Bush Jr. flew home by helicopter. He just flew in and sat down on the lawn. The arrival of the head of state did not affect the lives of citizens in any way at all.
Wild West. They don’t know that for such an occasion they can disperse everyone, block some part of Pennsylvania Street and make firefighters and ambulances wait.
My purely subjective opinion from the trip is that America is far from the most tolerant country in the world towards other people’s opinions. According to my feelings, in this regard, this is such an advanced version of the scoop-light, approximately from the Brezhnev era. Not Europe, at least. Nevertheless - freedom, please, this is your country...