Анархическое движение

Situation in Northern Caucasus and Libertarian reaction

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This article was originally published in Avtonom #30 in the Autumn of 2008. whole issue is available in PDF format  here. It was translated for Abolishing the Borders from Below #35 in Autumn of 2009  with a number of mistakes  corrected and some information updated..

It is of little doubt that the total failure of any attempts to oppose the Second Chechen War was the most bitter defeat of the Russian anarchist movement during the past decade. A feeling of total powerlesness in front of the brutal realities of the Chechenyan meat-grinder was pressing so heavily on the imagination of anti-authoritarians during the first half of the decade, that the movement was onlyable to recovere slightly when the intensity of the war gradually calmed down. 

It is an open secret that the newly created centers for counteraction of extremism in Russia often become the tool of repression and work against civil liberties and initiatives. Doing their work the "fighters against extremism" don't despise to break the law brutally. In Petrozavodsk 3 young people became the victims of the police outrage. They were being pressed and tortured and now the case is being fabricated.

15th of December of 2009 regional court of Primorsky overturned sentence of anarchist anti-fascist Yuri Mishutkin, who was 12th of October given a one-year probational sentence according to statute 108 part 1 of the Russian criminal codex (manslaughter due to exceeding necessary limits of self-defence).

From time to time, we should meet to discuss perspectives of our movement in the framework of global capitalism, evaluate successes and failures of our fight and plan new struggles. For this purpose, we invite you to the “Libertarian communism 2010” forum to be organised in Moscow.

In Izhevsk, officers of Centre of Counteraction Against Extremism (CPE, new Russian political police, formed in January of 2009) are falsifying a case against members of Autonomous Action. According to Galina Shutova, who is yet a witness in the case, state wants to make her a terrorist: “Officer of CPE Artyom Ahmetzyanov said to me directly, that he wants to do anything to lock me down”.

12th of October sentencing of Yura M., anarchist who killed a local Nazi in self-defence 22nd of November 2008. This was third time Yura got attacked by Nazis, he was jumped in April of 2006 15 to 5 and was hospitalized with a brain damage. He also suffered seriously in attack against Ecological protest camp in Angarsk 21st of July 2007, after attack he spent days in coma, two months in hospital and it took a whole year for him to recover. His friend Ilya Borodaenko was not that lucky, and he died as a result of the attack.