Insulting the Snowman

On March 21, 2008 in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia police arrested five activists for insulting a snowman.

Protesting a series of raids on the homes of non-violent government critics, including against staff members of the Nizhny Novgorod Foundation for the Promotion of Tolerance the previous day, a small group of young activists built a snowman outside the prosecutor’s office. They attached a sign to the snowman that read “The Biggest Extremist.”

The protesters were calling attention to the Russian authorities’ repeated use of the law that is designed to combat violent extremism to prosecute and harass non-violent government critics, including human rights defenders.

The Nizhny Novgorod police did not appear to share the joke. They took five of the protesters into detention saying that they had “insulted the snowman.”

The now released detainees have lodged a complaint for unlawful detention against the Chief of Police. They do not expect much follow up from the authorities.

The supposedly insulted snowman deserves to be remembered as a symbol of the absurd lengths to which the Russian authorities will distort the law in order to stifle dissent. This repressive zeal is having dire consequences for those who dare to speak out against Russia’s increasingly authoritarian rulers. Most recently, on March 20, police raided the offices of the Nizhny Novgorod Foundation for the Promotion of Tolerance, confiscated the computers and sealed the premises, paralyzing the organization’s work. Staff members of the organization believe that the authorities are seeking to build a criminal case against them, labeling them as extremists for their work seeking to expose human rights violations in the context of the conflict in Chechnya and the North Caucasus.

Just as we know that the snowman was not offended, human rights activists who seek to report the truth about human rights violations are not extremists. We wish that Russian police and prosecutors would remember that.