EDITORIAL: In Russia, Criminals wear Uniforms

EDITORIAL

In Russia, Criminals wear Uniforms

The symbol you see at the left, a diamond with a black dot in the center, is a coded symbol used among Russian criminals.  This particular one means: “Осужден по ст. 144 УК РФ – кража личного имущества.”  And that translates as:  “Convicted of Art. 144 of the Criminal Code – the theft of personal property.”  In other words, it’s the symbol for “thief.”  When you get sent to a Russian prison, you may well pass the time by tattooing yourself with such a symbol, if you want proclaim to all the world your pride in being a criminal, and indeed to announce just what sort of felon you are.

You may find this a rather obscure bit of trivia about Russia, and it surely is, until you look at the following photograph taken last weekend on Pushkin Square in Moscow.  It’s a photograph of a police colonel confronting Yuri Schevchuk, the Russian Bruce Springsteen, and preventing him from singing with amplification as part of a protest against the Putin dictatorship.   We wrote about this event in our last issue.

You may or may not be able to make out the symbol decorating the left middle finger of this “police officer,” if not you can click the image or click here for magnification.

Yes, it’s a tattoo of a triangle with a black dot in the center.  This police colonel is proudly proclaiming to the world that he’s a thief. In Russia, you see, you can tell the criminals rather easily, because they wear uniforms. The uniforms of police officers. But why should the police, of course, be any different from the government or the general population?

In our issue today, we document how Russia’s foreign minister has openly, publicly sided with international criminal Victor Bout, who supplies weapons to rogue regimes and terrorists.  We document how Russians have shamelessly created one of the world’s worst havens for computer criminals, and how they turn their back on law enforcement in this regard. And year after year, the international think tank Transparency International documents that Russia is one of the very most corrupt civilizations on the planet.

Still, when you see with your own eyes a photograph of a Russian police officer proclaiming that he is a criminal and proud of it, it reaches you in a way that mere words alone cannot.  It forces you to realize just what Russia is:  a bandit state, a country that is actually proud of being riddled with crime and corruption, and which has no plans to change, improve or reform.

After all, if this is what passes for a police officer in Russia, then do you dare imagine what passes for an ordinary citizen?

Of course, it could be that Russians should be glad to see police officers boasting of their criminal prowess.  That’s because the alternative may well be much, much worse.  Take for instance the photograph Oleg Kozlovsky recently highlighted on Facebook:

What’s that pin on the officer’s left lapel (another one of Putin’s fine fellows who responded to crush the opposition rally on Pushkin Square)? Why, it looks like   . . . but it couldn’t be could it?

Yes, it is! It’s a “United Russia” political button. In other words, this officer is publicly, officially, expressing his support for Putin’s party of power. While on duty crushing opposition party activists.

So indeed, perhaps it would be better if he were just an ordinary thief.