A 15-year-old critical Russian boy is going to jail for 5 years. What’s next, 12-year-olds, Tsar Putin?

No, it wasn't the fact that a 15-year-old Russian boy in Moscow was sentenced to 5 years in prison 'for participating in a terrorist organization' that took my breath away. What did? That his classmates went to the school board to 'rat him out'. They informed the interested school administration that their classmate Arseny Turbin was critical on the 'special military operation' that the Russians are conducting in Ukraine and was against the current regime.

The school administration rushed at once to the secret service FSB to report these scandalous practices. FSB agents then rushed even at a higher speed to Turbin's home, where they found anti-Putin pamphlets that Arseny allegedly distributed door-to-door when he was 14. Naturally, the teenage boy was arrested and immediately put behind bars. He was definitively sentenced last week.

A brave boy from the provincial Russian town of Livny, who - possibly - put pamphlets in mailboxes, demonstrated for the release of Alexei Navalny (and even visited his grave), is sentenced in Russia for 'participating in a terrorist organization'. How Orwellian can it get? Well, in this case, it's even worse than in the book 1984, because Turbin's classmates and teachers are the main responsibles for the fact that Arseny is being thrown in prison for 5 years. Oh, how wonderful it must have been to witness and participate in spitting on, humiliating, and betraying that brave boy….

It is especially reprehensible that the teachers behaved in such a despicable manner. I am certain that a smile appeared on Putin's face when he first heard about this affair. Russian citizens have now become nodding zombies who do everything they can to curry favor with the Kremlin. Putin must have gleefully concluded that soon the secret police and the riot police can be disbanded. ’My citizens are all too eager to censor themselves and others, and if necessary, they will even betray their own mother...’

How low can a totalitarian society sink? This low, apparently, but it can get even worse! It wouldn't surprise me if, in the future, reports emerge that a lynching took place in an eastern town in the Urals on a teenage boy and his sister who were carrying a cardboard sign in the town center. What was written on the sign? Nothing, nada. Yet this 'action' was judged by the crowd as anti-Kremlin, after which the two children were beaten to death.

What’s that you say? My imagination is running away with me? If only that were true... In March 2022, a man in the city of Novosibirsk held an empty A4 sheet in front of his chest without making any comment. The riot police quickly arrived and ordered the man to 'stop his illegal action.' He refused, after which he was roughly removed by four officers. The only difference with my fantasy story is that in my story, it involves two children - instead of an adult - carrying out a similar action...

’Truth is stranger than fiction’, this expression is highly applicable to present-day Russia. The FSB believed that 15-year-old Arseny Turbin even supported the Legion for the Freedom of Russia. In this legion, defected Russian soldiers fight alongside the Ukrainians. Arseny's mother was in tears after the sentencing. ’Why does he get 5 years, and why are they destroying my child?’ she asked in despair. Well, what would the average Russian think of these barbaric practices? Nothing. Nothing? Yes, where could Russians read or hear about this trial? Exactly, nowhere.

Unfortunately, the totalitarian and murderous political system in Russia seems far from its end. On the contrary, it continues to tighten its grip. Horrific situations like the one in the attached video may become more common in Russia in the coming years. Why ’may’? At some point, the public reaches its breaking point, and everyone wisely keeps their mouth shut. Or worse, they betray their own brother, mother, best friend, and of course, their classmate...

’Terror consists mostly of useless cruelties perpetrated by frightened people in order to reassure themselves’ (Friedrich Engels, philosopher 1820-1895).

See the video of a Russian man with an empty A4-paper who gets arrested….:

https://nos.nl/video/2421157-opgepakt-voor-demonstreren-met-een-leeg-vel-papier