Thursday, April 25, 2013

What Is There To Possibly Hope For In The Show Trial of Aleksei Navalny?

Other Than The Eternal Wish Justice Improves?

Imagine this board's meaning to a Defendant or a King?

On the first day of trial in Kirov, Russia, the initial BBC report stated that, after pleading innocent, Aleksei Navalny stood before the court and denounced his embezzlement trial as politically motivated. BBC even included the following positive picture of Mr. Navalny wearing a pre-trial demonstration smile.

While the RT headline above the picture below was, 
Opposition leader Navalny goes on trial, claims case 'politically motivated'

Nice how the world's commercial freedom allows our witnessing as straight forward and honed press coverage as any in the Stalinist Era, so to speak. Prosecutors had public support then too. An especially clear parallel when, after polishing off the details of the state's case, RT explains, with complete commercial callousness, that a survey basically found enough folks aren't aware justice isn't being served to care if the country's professionals can't afford principles. The craft of controlling public opinion is not Free Speech, yet world's great substitute.

Heck. The Russian legal culture is intact. Lawyers vs. lawyers, to a degree, kind of, sort of. Mr. Navalny is a lawyer. In the US, unless caught holding the smoking gun, a potential political hotshot is left alone so as to not raise the assumption of political impropriety. Imagine your country so weak there's no test for political propriety?  

A last Sunday editorial, A Blogger on Trial, by Bill Keller, in The New York Times, excellently summed up the Russian legal system's low trajectory toward a more complete openness. The following in italics was my comment on Mr. Keller's essay, finished just after the public comments were closed on 4/22/13 at 53
Amnesty for Everyone if no one is Innocent of Corruption? Sounds as ludicrous as President Putin, or anyone, being in a position to change Russian greed. How far America's relationship with corruption has evolved is always on trial every day. It must seem to Russians, fair trials are fairy tales, just as Americans know justice can be. This is Russia’s president’s cue to not turn his head and smile and say the courts aren’t his problem unless seen as another Stalin is his legacy? Then, for now, everything remains the same. Celebrities on trial and variations on martial law.

RUSSIA BEYOND THE HEADLINES covers the President's Popularity, and a March 23rd essay in The New York Times concerns Russia's wealth management. I just hope everything works out for everyone. Far be it from me to complain about  Russian politics, ... 


Coincidentally, in a record 4 hour and 47 minute televised Q & A, the president is accused, without quotes, of saying he’d personally ordered the general prosecutor’s office to approach the Navalny case objectively. Yes please, indeed sir, I'd appreciate some more fine-tune adjusting of those rose colored glasses.