Why this Blog?

A place where I can lament the changing times; for eccentric comments on current affairs and for unfashionable views, expressed I hope, in cogent style; also occasional cris de coeur largely concerned, I regret to say, with myself.



Comments

I welcome your comments, so do please write. Please note however that all comments are moderated prior to publication. Whilst I fully appreciate that life can be frustrating, nevertheless, abuse, SMS language and illiteracy will not be tolerated!

Wednesday, 12 March 2008

Free Speech Suffering Again

No, not Denmark or the Netherlands: this time it's "Democratic Russia".

Yes Putin's Russia where the press is state-controlled and all opposition ruthlessly put down as soon as it appears to be credible (ask Gary Kasparov).

Apparently, according to this article, people have taken to reading blogs and websites instead or perhaps as a counterbalance to, the "state press"; now the authorities have launched a criminal case against a blogger who posted an aggressive anti-police item on his blog.

The article quotes him as having said:

"They're trash — and those that become cops are simply trash, dumb, uneducated representatives of the animal world," he wrote. "It would be good if in the center of every town in Russia ... an oven was built, like at Auschwitz, in which ceremonially, every day, and better yet, twice a day ... the infidel cops were burned. This would be the first step toward cleaning society of these cop-hoodlum scum."

Hmm, makes this blog look positively mild by comparison, but in my view either there is free speech or there isn't.

Until the next time

No comments: