Last Wednesday, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin gave an interview on CNN’s Larry King Live for the first time in ten years. Among a variety of other controversial statements, Putin took a stab at the United States for "organizing secret prisons, kidnappings, and the use of torture.” In this column for Yezhednevny Zhurnal, reknowned Russian satirist Victor Shenderovich comments on the hypocrisy of such an attack.
A Few Words About Methods
By Viktor Shenderovich
December 7, 2010
Yezhednevny Zhurnal
I intentionally waited a few days – would anybody speak out?
Nope. All is quiet…
Impudence is bliss.
"The methods of our security services differ in a good way from the methods used by United States security services,” Putin told Larry King. "Thank God… the officers of our intelligence services and other security services are not noted as having been involved in the organization of secret prisons, kidnappings, or the use of torture.”
They were noticed, naturally, and more than once.
The difference between Russia and the US is that the people who used torture in Guantanamo are in prison, having been convicted by American courts, and the Russian citizens, kidnapped and tortured by FSB officers, won’t get justice from anywhere closer than Strasbourg.
The second difference is that the American journalists who investigated Guantanamo won the Pulitzer Prize and are all alive, and Politkovskaya and Estemirova, who investigated the filtration camp in Chernokozovo, have been murdered, and their murderers have not been found, and Putin still managed to publicly spit on Politkovskaya’s grave.
So that’s it about the methods. And not those of the security service, but of Putin and his propaganda. They are simple, like a stick: lie through the teeth, nobody will notice!
It doesn’t go unnoticed there – here it definitely goes unnoticed, because 99% of Russian citizens simply don’t hear the objections. Ekho Moskvy, a couple of uncensored magazines with a two-kilometer radius… The sweet joys of our liberal ghetto.
And on television, Putin makes a universal smear to Larry King.
