Under Pressure

In the news...a teacher faces trial and a fine following her disclosure of election fraud. 

Following the two bouts of elections in December and March, the Russian press exploded with allegations of widespread fraud, supported by detailed witness reports, scanned documents and video evidence. Even if some of these were, as the pro-government supporters like to call it, ‘provocations’ from the side of the opposition, the scope of complaints is so great, that there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that Putin did not win the alleged 63.6%. There is also no doubt that he would not have won fairly in any case, but it’s the arrogance of the cheating that infuriates. The press has been having a field month filing more and more witness reports and allegations, to the point of tedium. After all, what did they expect exactly? But the case of a 53 year-old teacher from St. Petersburg facing trial for her disclosure of pressure to defraud the election committee stands out in its callousness and, most of all, its humble heroism.

On January 27, 2012, Novaya Gazeta ran a report uncovering attempts to coerce St. Petersburg high-school teachers – members of the election committee – to ‘do everything possible for the victory of the United Russia party’ during the December Parliamentary elections. An anonymous teacher claimed in an interview that the head of the local education department, Natalia Nazarova, urged the congregation to hold back monitors, stuff pre-marked ballots and, as she added in a later interview, to forge signatures of those who did not come to vote so that the number of votes would match attendance figures. They were offered 70,000 roubles to carry this out – about 1,500GBP – an enormous sum for Russian teachers, who have one of the lowest salaries in the country. Tatiana Ivanova, head teacher with 30 years experience refused the generous offer and contacted the press instead. ‘To just upturn your entire life in one go – that was very difficult. But it would be much harder to live with the feeling of dirt that we were smeared with,’ she says. She was the only head of an election committee who spoke up – in the whole country.

Her story is, in itself, not surprising. The complained filed by Natalia Nazarova, demanding 100,000 roubles in moral damages for her ruined reputation is much more so. First of all, judging by the sum, her reputation wasn’t too badly bruised. Secondly, as Lyudmila Rybina – the Novaya Gazeta journalist charged alongside Mrs. Ivanova – suggests, the initial report was anonymous, so when the charge included not only the author of the article, but named Mrs. Ivanova, it rather suggests that the plaintiff recognised the details of the story, thereby confirming it as true. On April 18^th, 2012 a third preliminary hearing was held in St.Petersburg, with another scheduled for April 26^th.

So far, Mrs. Ivanova was forced to resign from her position, abandoning her senior class in the middle of the school year. The school director tried to resist the pressure, but when Natalia Nazarova threatened to open a corruption case against the school, based on the fact that Mrs. Ivanova’s son is married to one of the teachers and sometimes gets small contracts to repair equipment, Mrs. Ivanova understood that there was no point resisting. There has been a popular Internet campaign in her support, the hash tag with her name actually topping Twitter on the day of the trial; the parents of her senior class have filed a complained with the court, and there have even been a drive to raise money. Her colleagues, however, have abandoned her – ‘like the plague’, she says. In an interview on TV Rain, she thanked her internet supporters, saying that their kind word and even poetry helped her through enormously. But, despite many job offers, she says she is too tired to continue teaching. ‘The worst thing is, I lost faith’ she says. ‘In justice. In truth. In decency.’

In 2010, Malcolm Gladwell wrote an interesting article for The New Yorker, talking about the inability of the social networking sites to will a realistic social movement. Back then I thought he had a point, but wasn’t convinced. This case, however, sadly supports his gloomy argument. What use is it that #tatianaivanova trended in first place all over Russia? Lyudmila Rybina counted about 50 people protesting outside the court. That’s it?

Over the last few days, aside from this hearing, six people, including a ten-year old boy, were detained following a ‘photo-walk’ – a peaceful protest in which people carried photographs taken during election fraud protests – works of art, without any added words. A Moscow court has just extended custody for the punk group Pussy Riot, detained in February following a punk-prayer staged in a Moscow church calling on the Virgin Mary to rid Russia of Putin. One of the singers has been complaining of lack of medical treatment, which she would now have to forgo until June 24^th in the best-case scenario. The court official explain the decision to hold the three girls, all in their early twenties, who now face up to seven years in prison on aggravated hooliganism charges, ‘for their own safety’, as they might become subject of revenge. Around 20 people were arrested after protesting the decision outside the court. Earlier in April, Sergey Kondrashov, a Saint Petersburg lawyer, was arrested for holding up a banner that protested the new anti-gay laws: “A dear family friend is lesbian. My wife and I love and respect her … and her family is just as equal as ours."  He has been detained for 15 days, even though the law only presupposes a fine.

These are just a few examples. This trend of vindictive retribution against those who tried to stand up against the government machine is not very promising, especially since Putin, known for his grudges, has not yet officially taken over.

When her pupils asked Tatiana Ivanova about how they are supposed to go on living like this, she said, ‘don’t let anyone bring you down to your knees, otherwise you’ll spend your whole life on your knees’. A brave woman, who does not think herself a hero – just a ‘normal person’, is very right about that. And she lives by her beliefs, which is even more admirable. Unfortunately, this cannot be said about the thousands, hundreds of thousands people, sitting in front of their computers, doing absolutely nothing to either help her, or the situation. Because in their, or shall I say our case, (after all, what have I done?) there is currently no difference between the backside on which we idly sit, and our knees.