Originally published at: Pussy Riot's Maria Alyokhina escapes Russia "dressed as food courier" | Boing Boing
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You (and Jeff) aren’t kidding. The painful decision to finally leave often happens very quickly once one accepts that the state security thugs could knock on the door within a matter of minutes.
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Putting the ‘Dash’ in Door Dash.
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Wow. Good for her on getting out, she’s definitely someone Putin’s people would love to make an example of. Although if I were her I’d do my best to disappear, considering the tendency for expat Russian activists (and Belarusian activists) to end up getting murdered or dragged back to get arrested…
(This is kind of like how I imagine I’ll leave Hungary one day, except I’m too tiny a fish to be worried about being specifically tracked. I hope.)
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I have a (distant) relative who led a protest party in Hungary until a few years ago. Still a small fish, but it makes me sad to think he needs to be conscious of potential political danger.
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Good for her; glad she’s alright.
What about the rest of the band, though?
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As far as I know another rmember has left Russia as well, although I may be mistaken.
He absolutely needs to be conscious of that, unfortunately. For better or for worse, what anti-government activists can expect over here is not the secret police’s thugs but rather surveillance (as it turned out last year the government used Pegasus to track and monitor government-critical journalists and activists, and just a few days ago it was revealed that the police monitored activists as well), difficulties in their business or work, and harrassment from the tax authority.
We have a preacher here who is one of the longest and most prime targets of Our Dear Leader (he’s actually the one who christened Orbán’s children way back, but later on he refused to show support for him and in fact called him the fascist he is) who has been suffering from this for years now. At this point one almost wishes it was secret police thugs, at least that was straightforward and less disgustingly cynical.
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Dressing up as a food delivery person to leave a place in order to avoid getting fucked (up)? I believe that maneuver is known as the “reverse porno.” Especially appropriate as a “fuck you” to the FSB.
Glad she made it out - things were bad for them before, but now? I don’t think I’m being alarmist if I suggest their lives could be in danger if they stayed in Russia.
I read the Twitter posts of some Russians who aren’t even particularly politically vocal, but once they invasion of Ukraine was underway, they couldn’t stomach living there any longer and fled the country quite rapidly - I think even they saw their window of opportunity as closing.
What’s really disturbing about the current global swing to right-wing authoritarianism is that these days we’re all being tracked, all the time, and that information is easily available to anyone who wants it. It’s simply a matter of a government deciding how extreme they’re willing to be at any given moment. Having existing policies for dealing with “radical elements” also encompass small fishes is merely a matter of expanding some filter parameters.
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At least one other member, Lucy Shtein, escaped at the same time and in the same way as Alyokhina.
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There’s a reason my new house is on wheels.
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