Political Opposition Arrested And Tortured

In the Russia that Obama during the 3rd debate implied was not dangerous and from where Obama got one of his foreign leader endorsements members of the political opposition are being arrested and tortured.

Russian police detained several opposition leaders, including Alexei Navalny and Sergei Udaltsov, during a protest held in Moscow Saturday against the latest wave of arrests of political activists.

Police claimed the detained activists violated public order after about 200 people gathered around the headquarters of the Federal Security Service (FSB) with signs protesting political repression against the opposition, including allegations of torture by one activist.

The violation occurs when more than one person protests without permission from authorities. Now at this point I should say that civil disobedience requires arrest and if that is what these rallies were then they should be arrested. I would love to know how many times they requested permission and were denied as well as the reasoning for the denials. That would be relevant.

But what makes this story worthy of calling Russia dangerous is the torture of political opposition prisoners.

The picketing was called following the arrest and charging of activist Leonid Razvozzhayev, who had told rights campaigners last Tuesday that masked men kidnapped him the week before from Kiev, where he was applying for refugee status.

He said he was later smuggled into Russia and held in a cellar, where the men terrorised and threatened him for several days until he agreed to cooperate, after which he was handed over to Russian investigators to pen a confession.

But look at this. Arrest after arrest after arrest...

Anti-corruption campaigner Navalny, Left Front movement leader Udaltsov, and fellow opposition leader Ilya Yashin tweeted from the police station, where they were taken together with several other protesters.

...for responding to a documentary that claimed they wanted to overthrow Putin (which, being rid of Putin might not be bad and the way he has rigged things now an overthrow may be the only way to get him out of office--but that is all Russia's house to fix on their own).

Razvozzhayev, along with Udaltsov and Udaltsov's assistant Konstantin Lebedev have been charged with plotting mass riots after a smear documentary aired on a pro-Kremlin television channel claimed the trio wanted to overthrow Putin.

And it seems these 3 are not the only opposition members arrested.

Russia has over the past few months targeted many protest activists in various probes, with 13 people behind bars and awaiting trial on charges of alleged disorder at a massive rally on May 6, one day before Vladimir Putin was inaugurated for his third Kremlin term.

Glad to know that Russia is a freedom loving nation and not a danger...one that we can trust to finally hold up their end of nuclear treaties (in spite of decades of contrary behavior). Though, I would hate to see how bad it would have to get for our leader to classify them as a danger.