In all seriousness, Snowden didn't go to Russia. He was on his way to South America (probably Bolivia, Ecuador, or Venezuela) when his passport got cancelled and he got stuck in Rudsia. The EU even grounded Morales' presidential plane thinking Snowden was in it!
Photographs and WWI, basically. It's a bit hard to identify people with just written descriptions, and the war gave a reason to discriminate against certain groups for "spying" or whatever.
And it's lucky that he did. If Julian Assange had gotten stuck in Russia too instead of trusting the Ecuadorian embassy to protect him he would be a free man today.
EDIT: People I didn't say he is a saint or a good guy, just putting an example of a guy I know famous enough that criticized Putin or just for being it's opposition and getting punished for it. Not saying he didn't do other stuff....
Sur ether are other examples, for example recently people criticing the war but they are not famous examples....
Navalni is literally a comically evil Putin, all his positions are identical to Putin just even more nationalistic. You know nothing about him. He is essentially a Neo Nazi.
Im not a Russian domestic politics expert by a long shot but from what i see, a lot of these people liberals joke about "getting pushed out the window" seem worse than Putin
(Although i would like to hear what Russian communists say about that)
As a resident Belarusian comrade (close enough I guess), that is basically almost always the case. They always chose some absolute ghoul, and because westerners don’t know the language or care enough to check the policies, no one double checks what those ghouls are saying.
In the example of Navalni, he is an ethnonationalist and “national purist”. He is literal scum. If Putin is reactionary, Navalni is a fascist.
Why was he popular? He watched Rick and Morty on Reddit. I shit you not.
because westerners don’t know the language or care enough to check the policies
Maybe your common internet commentator does not check. But the western intelligence agencies check. They want someone like him in power in Russia over Putin. For 1) they'd own him, clearly they've done a lot for him and he would likely work with them, for 2) because he is a Nazi and ethnonationalist he would do for them what they've long sought to do which is break up Russia into smaller manageable ethnic chunks they can color revolution and control, his policies would drive and allow their intelligence agencies to further instigate into independence movements or at least long-burning terrorism that bogs down the state these tensions he'd create with the many ethnic groups in Russia. He's perfect for their aims. His views perfect.
Well yeah... It's the only guy I know famous enough to being criticing Putin getting punished for it. Not saying he is a saint or whatever or that he didn't do other stuff I don't know the guy enough for that, but that the main reason is criticing Puting sure.
Sure enough there might be other people detained for criticing Putin, specially recently about the war but I don't know know them.
Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny advocates for gun rights in Russia, while comparing immigrants and Muslims from Russia's southern regions to cockroaches and suggests they need to be exterminated.
The U.K. arrested almost 10 times as many people for social media posts as Russia did last year. Now maybe we could say they should be arresting more fuckers like Navalny. Haha
They're not locking people up for being communists, unlike post-2014 Ukraine (locking up is putting it mildly they are torturing people to death openly on Telegram). Here in the US people are getting harassed by the FBI for being Chinese. They should be going and shutting down the people spreading hate speech here, but they're into it.
Well yeah, I don't think I need one, it's pretty common knowledge. Yeah they are not Switzerland prisons either not gonna says the stay will be awesome, and tbh it shouldn't be for some motherfuckers...
If only I could think of a high profile example of a journalist imprisoned in cruel and unusual circumstances in the UK to contradict your "common knowledge".
🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔💭
Can you think of anyone off the top of your head? One last chance.
So why doesn't Assange count? "Oh it's fine, he's just an unusual political prisoner, they wouldn't treat ordinary people like me that way."
Yet they haul in random TikTokers now. 3000 mfs arrested over politically incorrect likes and shares calling for an end to war.
So, why doesn't that go for Navalny? The guy talking about going school shooter on fellow citizens? Why is his treatment assumed to be the same as the 400 other people arrested in the whole country?
Assange literally worked with The Guardian and WAPO etcetera to protect NATO intelligence agents and they betrayed him anyways.
Just gonna give you a serious reply since maybe you're just genuinely surprised or uninformed. We don't believe there's "true" "free speech" anywhere in this world today, because the concept itself is entirely fictional, while you're taking us being facetious as us advocating for Russia being a "free speech haven".
I get what you are saying and I think it is important for people to remember that Russia is not Cuba or Vietnam or even China, and if they could get something out of surrendering people like Snowden, they would.