The Economist - USA (2020-02-15)

The EconomistFebruary 15th 2020 Europe 47

T

hefrenchforeignminister,Jean-

YvesLeDrian,isa manoffewwords

andmanyairmiles.Whenhedoescom-

ment,it isusuallytodeploreeventsin

Syria,say,orIran.ButonFebruary9ththe

ministerlethisinnerpassiongetthe

betterofhim.Thereason?Anemoji.“The

countdownison!”MrLeDriantweeted

excitedly.AllBretons,heurged,should

mobiliseonsocialmediabytweetinga

hashtag,aspartofa campaigntosecure

anemojifortheBrittanyflag,knownas

theGwennhadu. “Goon,tweetour#emo-

jiBZHanddon’tletup!”

MrLeDrian,bornintheBrittanytown

ofLorient,wasmerelythelatesttojoin

anefforttoturntheblack-and-white

stripedBrittanyflagintoa digitalicon.

Promotedbywww.bzh,whichrunsthe

Bretoninternetdomainname,andthe

Brittanyregion,thecampaignfirst

stirredinterestin2017.On“worldemoji

day”thatyear,toBretons’delight,the

Gwennhaduwasvotedthesecondmost-

wantedemojiworldwide.(Itnarrowly

losttomate, aninfusionpopularinLatin

America.)Lastmontha fresheffortwas

madetodemonstratetotheUnicode

Consortium,a globaltech-backedbody

thatapprovesnewemojis,popularback-

ingfortheBrittanyflag.Withinhours,

thehashtag#emojiBZHwastrendingat

thetopofTwitterinFrance.

Competitionfornewemojisisfierce.

Raclette,anAlpinemelted-cheesedish,

wasrejectedastooobscure.Unicodesays

approximationsprecludetheneedfor

certainadditions.A squirrel,it insists,

canberepresentedbya chipmunkemoji.

RequestsforanemojifortheTibetanand

Catalanflagsarestillpending—although

thereisonefortheIsleofMan,andthe

FrenchislandofLaRéunion.

Anindependentkingdominthe9th

century,BrittanybecamepartofFrance

in1532.Butregionalidentityhasbeen

fiercelydefended,withperiodicrevolts,

eversince.TodayBretonprideandpow-

erfulnetworksendure.FrançoisPinault,

a luxury-goodstycoon,fliestheBreton

flagfromtheVenetianpalacethathouses

hisartcollection.In2018,whenintro-

ducingMrLeDriantothepope,President

EmmanuelMacronjokedthat“Bretons

areeverywhere,it’stheFrenchmafia!”

Now,though,MrMacronhasswung

behindtheemoji.Whenhisofficial

photographer,a Bretonne,tweetedinits

favour,hegaveit thepresidential“like”.

Theemojiwars

France

PARIS

TweetforBrittany

S

ix or sevenmen in balaclavas walked

into a prison cell in Penza, a provincial

Russian town 400 miles (650km) south-

east of Moscow. They told their 25-year-old

prisoner to undress. They gagged him, tied

his legs to a bench and connected wires to

his big toes. Then they started to electro-

cute him. “My muscles started to contract,

causing a paralysing pain,” he recalled. “I

started to scream and hit my head against

the wall, but they carried on. Ten seconds

seems like an eternity.” The masked men

then tried to connect more wires to his gen-

itals. Terrified and in pain, he repeated

what his torturers told him to say: “Yes, I

am the ringleader. Yes, we were preparing

terrorist attacks.”

This is not a story from the Soviet Union

in the 1930s, when Stalin’s secret police, the

nkvd, tortured and killed millions of inno-

cents while uncovering imaginary plots. It

is the testimony of Dmitry Pchelintsev, one

of 11 men who were arrested in October 2017

in Penza and St Petersburg and charged

with forming a terrorist group to disrupt

Vladimir Putin’s presidential re-election

and the football World Cup in 2018. On Feb-

ruary 10th seven of them were sentenced to

between six and 18 years in prison camps.

Just as in the trials of that earlier time,

the entire case was fabricated. There was

no act of terrorism and no plan for one. The

case rests on confessions obtained through

torture and later retracted in court. Accord-

ing to prosecutors, these men “in an un-

identified place proposed to unidentified

anarchists to take part in the inter-regional

terrorist organisation ‘Network’ with the

aim of forcibly changing Russia’s constitu-

tional order.” The organisation’s “charter”,

which the prosecution cited in evidence,

mysteriously appeared on the hard drives

of the “terrorists” after they had been

seized by security services.

According to Memorial, Russia’s most

eminent human-rights organisation, there

is no evidence that Network ever existed.

In fact, some of the members of the

made-up network did not know each other

until the arrests. What linked them were

their anarchist views, their anti-fascist ac-

tivism and their penchant for airgun com-

bat games, which the fsb, a successor to

the nkvd, said was training for terrorism.

Living in a provincial backwater, unpro-

tected by money, status or the Moscow-

centred media, they were easy targets.

The case (and the torture) were the work

of the fsb’s notorious “service for the pro-

tection of constitutional order and the

fight against terrorism”. In a bitter irony,

the sentencing coincided with an assault

on Russia’s constitution from Mr Putin

himself, who is rewriting it to suit his goals

of staying in power indefinitely and isolat-

ing Russia from international laws and

conventions that buttress human rights.

Neither draconian sentences nor tor-

ture are new in Russia. What is new about

this case, says Kirill Rogov, a political ana-

lyst, is its political logic. “Putin has appro-

priated Stalin’s method of engineering

cases to impose terror, particularly among

young people, to criminalise political ac-

tivism,” he says. The Network case was

launched soon after tens of thousands of

youngsters took to the streets in some 80

Russian cities, protesting against the

Kremlin and corruption. The Kremlin took

notice; the fsbtook what they call “prophy-

lactic” measures to strike fear. In a similar

case, its provocateurs and informers

trapped ten young people, including two

teenage girls, in an engineered extremist

organisation called “New Greatness”.

It is unclear whether these tactics will

deter or radicalise the protesters. The big

difference with the Stalinist era, however,

is the public reaction. Russians on social

media are seething. Young people in Mos-

cow are coming out one by one to stand in

front of the fsbheadquarters holding prot-

est placards. There are collective open let-

ters of support. To be effective, repression

must either be so widespread that it is hard

to avoid or so cruel that it strikes fear into

dissident hearts. Mr Putin’s regime is not

totalitarian and cannot snoop on the same

scale as China’s government; perhaps that

is why he is getting crueller. 7

Tough sentences for made-up crimes

point to growing repression

Russia

Show trials