this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2023
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This news story is over a year ago, and the US locks up people all the time for political reasons
yeah both are bad
although the source on this article is dubious so this case is probably made up
It seems legit that she was arrested based on the Russian articles about that have been posted in this thread, but I don't speak Russian so idk what it says she actually got arrested for.
Either way, unless RFE is completely distorting the reason why she got arrested and it's actually a terrible crime she committed, it seems that its another case of far right post-soviet neoliberalism doing police crack downs
I don't know if they'd go through the effort of staging the photo
https://vkrizis.ru/obschestvo/olga-smirnova-prigovorena-k-shesti-godam-za-sem-postov/ https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/6186252
I don't read russian but I think this is legit? I just copied and pasted her Cyrillic name in Duck Duck Go, so these might still be western propaganda targeted towards Russians like I said I don't speak or read Russian or know major outlets in Russia.
Whataboutism
Can you provide proof that people in today's US have been given jail time for posting online government criticism?
Here's a guy who got locked up for saying that if they try a local Jan 6th in Florida people need to be armed to resist. Dude got sentenced to 4 years of prison for posting about defending the country from Jan 6thers.
https://theintercept.com/2021/10/16/daniel-baker-anarchist-capitol-riot/#:~:text=On%20Tuesday%2C%20a%20Florida%20judge,of%20the%20January%206%20riots.
Wow that's disgusting
You don't always get jail time for criticizing the government.
Does Manning count?
Not really, the one is a whistleblower leaking highly confidential information and the other is a simple person speaking out against their government's actions.
I'm not by any means saying that Manning didn't do the right thing and deserves jail, just that it isn't the same case.
https://fortune.com/2023/04/18/russia-propaganda-elections-4-americans-charged-black-empowerment/
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/us-citizens-and-russian-intelligence-officers-charged-conspiring-use-us-citizens-illegal
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/04/20/black-liberation-organizers-indicted-for-opposing-war/
All the same story, different sources (or bias). not including the NAFO dog community sabatoging that eco socialist (Dimitri Lascaris) trying to make peace talks in canada
edited for more clairty & details and spell check.
This level of detail is not included in the linked article. The article says "she placed materials about Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine on the Internet that contradicted official Defense Ministry statements." From the article, we have no idea what those materials were. Maybe they included classified information, maybe they included actually false information, maybe they included incitements to violence, we don't know.
Note also that the article is from Radio Free Europe, a U.S. propaganda outlet:
https://vkrizis.ru/obschestvo/olga-smirnova-prigovorena-k-shesti-godam-za-sem-postov/
If you search her name in Cyrillic you can find Russian sources (.ru domains are managed by Russia, no?)
It's okay to have no free speech rights as long as the government tells you in advance you don't have them
I tried to look through a lot of cases. It seemed like most every case was leaking information, threats of actual violence, stolen valor, or other generally agreed upon crimes. There's truth to the notion that a government is more likely to look for crimes if you're a specific person, but I don't know of anyone in the modern US who goes to jail for lying about things the army has done. I use the word "lying" because Russia courts make the claim that that's what happened here.
Also, there are more recent cases of Russia imprisoning someone for essentially this same crime.
The US prosecuted activists for "sowing discord" this year. That's basically the same thing as going after someone for lying.
Assange wasn't leaking information, he was reporting on information that had already been leaked.
The prosecution provided evidence that WikiLeaks helped Manning crack a password which would involve them in the leak itself. So saying he was just reporting on it is debatable.
Innocent until proven guilty
He was found guilty...
Like Russia, the US prosecutes you for exposing the truth of what the US army does abroad. arguing that classified information keeps US citizens safe in their "work" abroad – not unique to the US but the US is the dominant world power still so it gets a lot of criticism from the left. It's hard to get the right perspective when you live in an imperial core that has done a lot to insulate its civilian populace from the impacts of conflict, and governments don't like it when whistleblowers make it easier.