Practice of repentance

The publication " Re : Russia " writes about the normalization of violence and the practice of public apologies:

“Practices of public repentance were widespread in the Stalin USSR and Maoist China, and in recent times - in theocratic Iran <...>. This method of psychological pressure on society and Alexander Lukashenko borrowed. As a rule, such political practice indicates the normalization of violence (torture) and intimidation in relation to the disagreement. If the torture is normalized, then it is often possible to achieve a public apology. For society, these public apologies are also an unambiguous signal about the threat of physical violence against disagreements.

<...> In total, according to the Caucasian Knot portal (entered by the Ministry of Justice in the register of foreign agents - Polit.ru), since 2015, at least 182 cases of forced public apologies have been recorded in the Caucasus; In 2022 there were at least 30 of them.

With the beginning of <...> (pour - Polit.ru), this practice spread far beyond the borders of the North Caucasus. The first cases of public apologies became known immediately after <...> shares on February 24 last year. Then there were a video with rallies participants Anastasia Levashova and Zakhar Tatuko. Another resonant incident occurred in November 2022 with Tiktoker Nekolai: to make it apologize for the allegedly offensive video, torture was applied to it. Video with apologies often appear on the platforms associated with the FSB, SK and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in pro-government media and Telegram channels, allegedly related to power structures. In total, the OTD-Info (entered by the Ministry of Justice in the register of foreign agents-Polit.ru) is known about 94 cases of public apologies for anti-war views.

One of the main aggregators of such videos was the SMERSH Telegram channels. Its authors say that "are engaged in the search for traitors." <...> The Smersh channel in the Crimea is especially actively operating - almost 64 thousand people are signed on it, and the video with apologies appears there several times a week. ”