Are you people or not people?

In Omsk on Teatralnaya Square on October 28, 2012, from 2 to 4 p.m., single pickets were held against political repression against civil activists. Against torture, unfair criminal prosecutions, kidnappings, persecution of oppositionists, extorting confessions. The pickets were held in support of political prisoners as part of an all-Russian protest organized by the Coordination Council of the Opposition, which we had just elected, despite the obstacles put in place by the authorities.

These days, our fellow oppositionists were picketing throughout Russia. Omsk residents also took to the streets to send a clear and understandable signal to the KGB authorities with their protest actions that people will not allow a repeat of 1937.

The pickets in Omsk took place without visible incidents. Only towards the end of the picketing, at first, incomprehensible subjects with a purely boyish appearance and equipment began to pull up to the square. Then the police appeared in uniform. This time, single pickets were held without publishing an announcement on opposition websites calling for people to come. People simply came to the square at the call of the CSR. Therefore, the picketers spent an hour and a half in truly free conditions, without the supervision of Big Brother, who learned about the pickets after they began. The last half hour is under supervision.

The police did not see any violations in our actions. That's what the police leaders told us, anyway. The future will show how much this can be believed. We do not rule out further subpoenas, home interviews, protocols, etc.

In general, our Omsk pickets went on in a routine manner without incident. Nothing special, unless you consider the fact that a bunch of Omsk residents stand on pickets, go to rallies, work in RVK, fight the authorities in the courts, and millions sit at home on their sofas. Well, then let the “sofa people” read the Strugatskys for edification, maybe this reading will get through to them:

“Are they people or not people? What is human about them? Some are slaughtered right on the streets, others sit at home and meekly wait for their turn. And everyone thinks: anyone, but not me. The cold-blooded brutality of those who slaughter, and the cold-blooded submission of those , who is being cut. Cold blood, that’s the most terrible thing. Ten people stand, frozen in horror, and submissively wait, and one comes up, chooses a victim and coldly cuts it. The souls of these people are full of impurities, and every hour of submissive waiting pollutes them more and more. more. Now, in these hidden houses, scoundrels, informers, murderers are being invisibly born, thousands of people, stricken with fear for life, will mercilessly teach fear to their children and their children’s children. I can’t do it anymore... A little more, and I.. I’ll become the same, a little more, and I’ll finally stop understanding why I’m here..."

(c) Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. It's hard to be a god

Photo by Alexey Uglirzh

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