Fight and rule

How Muscovites were intimidated before the action on August 3. Review of methods

Detention and beating on protest in Moscow and July 27, and on August 3, they themselves may be an argument for some part of dissatisfied citizens, so that in the future there is no way to go to any streets. But this argument in the conditions of the current exacerbation of the conflict between the authorities and supporters of independent candidates for deputies of the Moscow City Duma does not work well. Therefore, the state has rolled out a whole set of intimidation methods. "New" lists propaganda technologies against civic mobilization, which became especially noticeable on the eve of August 3.

1

Didn't serve - don't protest

A significant part of dissatisfied citizens going to the streets is young people, so the authorities began to play the topic of search among protesting deviators from military service. On the eve of August 3, the Investigative Committee distributed information that at a rally on July 27, “special groups” among the detainees were revealed 134 blasphemy - and, judging by the information of the UK, “malicious”. In relation to some of them, a pre -investigation check is already being carried out. An attempt to “echo” from the army is considered a criminal offense and is punishable, among other things, deprivation of liberty for up to two years. At the same time, the UK does not bother that the spring call has already ended, the autumn has not yet begun, and a person who is suspected of evading outside these terms cannot be considered a criminal.

2

Video broadcasts on the dangers of protests

On August 2, in the evening, residents of Moscow, returning home by public transport, found that the Moscow 24 television channel was twisting non -stoply on monitors in the metro with mass detentions of a week ago. The video was accompanied by a text comment on criminal liability for "riots."

It is noteworthy that, according to some passengers, the videos were preceded by a video with a comment by Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin about how he evaluates the action on July 27 (with adherent decryption).

3

Dear people do not advise

Before August 3, the “best people of the city” were called to the propaganda front: artists, directors, musicians - all of them with maximum persuasiveness in social networks and on the pages of Moscow publications tried to explain why it was not necessary to go to inconsistent promotions.

Karen Shakhnazarov, Igor Butman, Tigran Keosayan, Ivan Demidov, Konstantin Bogomolov and other media persons, signed up to the power tribunes.

Which simultaneously condemned people's exit to unauthorized rallies and announced the full support of the actions of the authorities. “This“ enlightened ”, as she believes, does not understand that she would arrange such a hooliganism in the country's exhausted and twice destroyed by revolutions, a terrible crime?” - In particular, Keosayan wrote.

In parallel, the Moscow authorities decided to urgently organize a festival in Gorky Park with the summer name “Shashlyk Live”. Famous musicians - mostly rockers were also called up there - however, some of them learned about this by the post -fact of the media, and the leader of the accident group, Alexei Kortnev, refused to participate in the festival for “ethics reasons” and expressed his support to the protesters. “I would experience too much ethical discomfort if I had an entertaining event on the same day with protest promotions. There will be violence, there will be detentions - and parallel to everything that was happening and to have fun, I considered it completely unacceptable, ”Kortnev said“ New ”.

4

Deadless protest

The authorities and security forces neutralized most of the leaders of protest at the very beginning of July 27 or even earlier, sending them under administrative arrest for terms of 8 to 30 days. However, in parallel, deeper work is underway. On August 3, the SK opened a criminal case on laundering a billion rubles in the Corruption Fund. On the eve of the Project publication reported that the Ministry of Internal Affairs is conducting a pre -investigation verification on this subject. According to the verification materials, which are referred to by the “project”, investigators are concerned about the funds passing through the accounts of the FBK employees (in 2017-2018 this amount supposedly amounted to more than a billion rubles): it is believed that they “could come from abroad from third parties and have signs of“ doubtfulness ”. The head of the Federal Staff of Navalny Leonid Volkov told Novaya Gazeta that this publication was Mentovsky Plum, and did not comment on the data given in the material of the project. However, on Saturday, the Investigative Committee officially announced the criminal case.

It turns out that law enforcement agencies still believe that the main source of protest activity comes from Alexei Navalny and his team, which seems to be at least a significant underestimation of the scale of hidden civil discontent.

5

Military sociology and threats

On the eve of August 3, the State Sociological Service - VTsIOM - published the results of the survey, according to which 61% of Muscovites surveyed and 69% of Russians supports the strict acceleration of inconsistent shares in the center of Moscow. However, parallel polls of other, independent sociological structures do not confirm these figures, and journalists caught VTsIOM for manipulations: they make their conclusion pro -government sociologists on the basis of “you agree or disagree with the opinion that in such situations the power should act in accordance with the law, even if you have to apply rigid measures?” What you need to be honest does not correspond at all what is eventually trying to pass away from VTsIOM for public opinion. The general director of the sociological service Valery Fedorov refused to comment on the media, citing vacation.

The key thought that the authorities and security officials are trying to show (except for the thought that these are all “mass riots”) is the thesis “Police and the Russian Guard does everything right”. This is a reaction to an obviously worsening attitude to law enforcement agencies by society. That is why, in particular, there is a nervous reaction to a disparate public campaign to deanonymization of law enforcement officers who exceeded their authority on shares. On the material of the “new” about deanonymization on social networks - especially on Twitter - dozens of threats “deanonymize the newspaper’s employees” (if possible, in the nearest gateway) received dozens of threats. The analysis of these threats shows that among the commentators there is a large number of “trolls”, which, however, does not deny their possible connection with equalized structures.

6

Protest in faces

In parallel with relatively fresh findings for the intimidation of the protesters, the old story with laying out photos of protesters on the network is also used - only in a new way. The Kremlin cook, supervised by Evgeny Prigozhin, began to actively advertise the site “Crimson-info”, which posts photographs from social networks of those people who were noticed on inconsistent shares. The site’s hat notifies the punishment for participating in “Mass riots”. Outwardly, this is very similar to the JE SUIS MAIDAN website, which “new” wrote about back in 2017: then unknown authors of the resource also actively promised the punishment of everyone whom they could be recognized with their help on street actions. True, the resource itself died earlier than the then wave of protest. The Infuture-Info is very similar to reincarnation-as they would say on the TV, "however, nothing new."

In principle, the emergence of such a site is now very similar to the “answer” of the deanonymization campaign. But this is stupid, says deputy Kirill Goncharov. “Firstly, people themselves are broadcasting, take photos and write about their participation. Secondly, people who go to a peaceful picket do not violate the law, why should they be afraid of Deanon? But riot police, beating without reason with batons of civilians, is afraid - and quite reasonably, ”says Goncharov. - The city is in a siege position. The feeling that the enemy is on the border, but one nuance: there is no one on the border. ”