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As Police Crack Down on Moscow Protesters, Activists Work to ID Them

Alexey Gorbachev

   This story originated in [1]VOA's Russian Service.
   WASHINGTON -- It was just hours after Russian President Vladimir
   Putin's May 2018 inauguration that the footage appeared online: a
   coterie of men clad in unmarked military garb chasing down and beating
   anti-Kremlin protesters as riot police passively looked on.

   Two young rights advocates, a journalism student named Viktor Oleynik
   and a data analyst, Anton Gromov, had had enough. Loading the footage
   to encrypted instant messaging app Telegram, the pair implored their
   followers to crowdsource identities of the assailants, a rag-tag band
   of self-proclaimed Cossacks who delivered the beatings with impunity.

   The two then published a list of names and photographs identifying the
   vigilantes on a site called [2]bewareofthem.org, which has since grown
   into a fully indexed user-generated database that tracks everyone from
   corrupt election commissioners to violent thugs, riot cops and secret
   police officers who are recorded beating pro-democracy demonstrators
   across Russia.

   By cataloging each image by name, profession or organizational
   affiliation, Oleynik--who, like Gromov, has since moved abroad after
   being declared an "enemy of the state"-- is creating an official record
   of crimes committed against Russian nationals for practicing their
   constitutionally protected right to peaceful protest.

   Latest rallies a tipping point

   New footage of increasingly brutal beatings by the state security
   forces has proliferated amid recent street protests over municipal
   elections in Moscow, slated for Sept. 8.

   Over the past few weeks, thousands have been detained at rallies for
   free and fair elections after Moscow's electoral commission, which is
   designed to impartially administer the elections, disqualified the
   majority of opposition candidates from seeking office.

   Nearly 1,400 protesters were taken into custody on July 27 alone.

References

   1. http://www.golos-ameriki.ru/
   2. https://bewareofthem.org/en/home-3/

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