');
The Unz Review •�An Alternative Media Selection$
A Collection of Interesting, Important, and Controversial Perspectives Largely Excluded from the American Mainstream Media
RSS
Show by ⇅�
Email This Page to Someone

�Remember My Information



=>
� Earlier Items �
BlogAnatoly Karlin Archive
/
Human Rights
�BlogAnatoly Karlin Archive
/
Human Rights

◄►Bookmark◄❌►▲ ▼Toggle AllToC▲▼Add to LibraryRemove from Library •�B
Show CommentNext New CommentNext New ReplyRead More
ReplyAgree/Disagree/Etc. More... This Commenter This Thread Hide Thread Display All Comments
AgreeDisagreeThanksLOLTroll
These buttons register your public Agreement, Disagreement, Thanks, LOL, or Troll with the selected comment. They are ONLY available to recent, frequent commenters who have saved their Name+Email using the 'Remember My Information' checkbox, and may also ONLY be used three times during any eight hour period.
Ignore Commenter Follow Commenter
Taliban Rule Is the Democratic Will of 13% of Afghans
•�August 18, 2021
•�3,300 Words •�348 Comments
It is true that Afghans probably have the highest "Islamism Quotient" in the world. Support for sharia, as Steve Sailer reminds us, is basically universal. He refers to a 2013 PEW poll, which Razib Khan and I had covered a few years back. Furthermore, 79% of Afghans who support sharia also support the death penalty... Read More
Bolshevik Aristocide: the Fate of Sikorsky's Engineers
•�July 24, 2019
•�800 Words •�169 Comments
Igor Sikorsky was a giant of aviation history. He designed the world's first heavy bomber (Ilya Muromets), the world's first mass produced helicopter (Vought-Sikorsky VS-300), and founded a multi-billion worth aviation company that continues making helicopters to this day. He was also a devout Orthodox Christian and a strong Russian patriot: "My family, which comes... Read More
Russia Regains PACE Voting Rights
•�June 25, 2019
•�400 Words •�285 Comments
Today Russia had its voting rights restored at PACE, the parliamentary arm of the Council of Europe - a separate structure from the EU that focuses on democracy and human rights. Russia's voting rights were suspended in March 2014 over Crimea. It took Russia three years to stop paying into an organization where it didn't... Read More
"Assange Should Have Picked the Russian Embassy." But He Did.
•�April 11, 2019
•�1,200 Words •�287 Comments
In another timeline, Julian Assange may have enjoyed long walks with Edward Snowden by the Patriarch Ponds in Moscow. Imagine that you are a dissident at risk of extradition to a jilted superpower, whose secrets you just spilled for the entire world to gawk at, and you happen to be caught up in the capital... Read More
PETITION: Don’t Let Maria Butina Go to Prison for Supporting American 2nd Amendment Values!
•�August 1, 2018
•�500 Words •�130 Comments
Sign the petition here: Drop or dismiss all charges against Russian human rights activist Maria Butina. Don’t Let Maria Butina Go To Prison For Supporting American 2nd Amendment Values! Right to Bear Arms, Russia’s premier gun rights organization, wishes to express its grave concern at what we see as the politically-motivated prosecution of our founder,... Read More
Butina Trutherism
•�July 23, 2018
•�200 Words •�75 Comments
One persistent thing I have noticed in this recent saga is the refusal to believe that there is any civil society in Russia that is even marginally independent of Putler and ROG. Clarification: While there are genuine pro-"democracy" (pro-LGBT, pro-Ukrainian, etc.) organizations in Russia, which are of course viciously repressed, there are certainly no such... Read More
Freedom House: Human Rights Abuse Against Satirists
•�January 17, 2018
•�400 Words •�29 Comments
Freedom in the World 2018 is out now: "Democracy in Crisis." This makes the deep state neocon goons who run that outfit very sad. My prediction from 2017: Last minute misgivings aside, this has indeed happened. While FH still thinks Civil Rights in the US are at 1/7 (where 1 is best and 7 is... Read More
Liu Xiaobo, Chinese Neocon
•�July 13, 2017
•�700 Words •�57 Comments
For what my views are worth - which is very little, especially in China - I am always for freedom of speech. That said, it's worth clarifying that the late Liu Xiaobo was much more a Western nationalist than a genuine humans right activist. "[It would take] 300 years of colonialism. In 100 years of... Read More
Trigger Warning: Crimean Tatars Support Russia
•�May 18, 2016
•�1,500 Words •�41 Comments
In the wake of blatantly political voting during Eurovision 2016, which Ukraine's Crimean Tatar representative Jamala won despite losing both the popular and the jury vote, to Russia and Australia respectively, the debate has been dominated by the following two positions: Russia supporters - It was a political song, and as such inadmissable under long-standing... Read More
No, Iran Isn't "Worse" Than the Saudis
•�January 9, 2016
•�600 Words •�26 Comments
This is an argument that is doing the rounds on the Internet after Iran's condemnation of the Saudi execution of 47 people (including at least 4 "politicals") to mark the New Year and the ensuing breakdown in Iranian-Saudi diplomatic ties. After all, they say, Iran executes a lot more people than the Saudis. � One... Read More
Trump Is Factually Right on Putin and Journalists
•�December 20, 2015
•�900 Words •�24 Comments
In the past few days there has been a sort of alt-singularity as Putin and Trump exchanged compliments, as one might think befits mature heads of powerful states (one actual, one potential). Naturally, one of these men has been taking a lot of heat for it from all the empty suit punditry and the Cuck-in-Chief... Read More
Nazarbayev Greatest President In Region
•�April 30, 2015
•�1,800 Words •�19 Comments
In Western popular culture, and to be honest most of the rest of the world, Kazakhstan is most commonly associated with Borat and his putative homeland of slapstick provincial troglodytes. And following Nursultan Nazarbayev's 98% win in the recent elections, and his reaction to it... ... the casual observer might feel that it has some... Read More
A Bizarre Pardon
•�December 20, 2013
•�200 Words •�38 Comments
I have no idea what possessed Putin. Did he think that it would spare him Western criticism in the run-up to Sochi? Of course not. Khodorkovsky was on the back-burner. LGBT rights are West's stick du jour to beat up on Russia. Did he think it would improve the legal and investment climate? I sure... Read More
James Kirchick: Vapid, Bloviating Troll
•�August 26, 2013
•�300 Words •�9 Comments
He got invited to RT to talk about Bradley Manning and his impending sentence. The gay journalist James Kirchick got invited to argue his viewpoint that Manning wa a traitor who deserved to be put to death. (I wonder what his newfound liberal groupies would make of that?). Instead, he used his airtime to go... Read More
Why Jailing Navalny Is a Great Idea
•�July 18, 2013
•�1,900 Words •�15 Comments
Earlier today, Navalny received a custodial sentence of five years for the theft of 15 million rubles ($500,000) worth of timber from Kirovles. It is simply not true to say that there was "no case" against Navalny, as the Western and Russian liberal media insists on doing. There is wiretap evidence and witness testimony that... Read More
2 Murders, 3 Years, 12 Families: Why Pugachev Residents Are Angry
•�July 17, 2013
•�400 Words •�17 Comments
Though I know I missed the train on this news, one point in particular is worth drawing attention to as regard the stabbing of (the half-Tatar) paratrooper Ruslan Morzhanov by a 16-year-old ethnic Chechen, which incited the small town of Pugachev to stage a peaceful mini-revolt against the feds. So. Two murders, committed within the... Read More
Lessons from the Snowden Affair
•�July 7, 2013
•�1,600 Words •�21 Comments
(1) Just as with Manning, it is beyond dispute that Snowden broke US law. As such, the US government is perfectly entitled to try to apprehend him (on its own soil), request his extradition, and prosecute him. This is quite perpendicular to whether Snowden's leaks were morally "justified" or not. In some sense, they were.... Read More
No Use Crying Over Leaked Milk - Let Alone Threatening Sanctions Over It
•�July 1, 2013
•�800 Words •�11 Comments
My latest for Experts Panel/Voice of Russia: The Panel states, "On future occasions, Russia might well require Washington to cooperate in similar circumstances; and if such is the case, its handling of the Snowden affair could prove decisive as to how Washington chooses to respond." Well, let's imagine this scenario. One fine day, an FSB... Read More
Mark Adomanis: Do As US Officials Say, or Else!...
•�June 25, 2013
•�1,000 Words •�31 Comments
Mark Adomanis thinks Russia should extradite - or at least expel - Edward Snowden because... get this, it's current stance (i.e. leaving him in at Sheremetyevo Airport, an international territory) constitutes "trolling" of the US. This is, to be quite frank, a rather strange argument. Would the US extradite a Russian Snowden? To even ask... Read More
What's Good for the Goose Is Gaffed by the Gander
•�June 1, 2013
•�600 Words •�3 Comments
I will be going on a "working vacation" this Sunday, so I'm publishing my weekly contribution to VoR/US-Russia experts panel early: Okay, let's get one thing clear from the get go: The Russian law requiring NGOs to declare themselves "foreign agents" if they engage in political activities and receive financing from abroad, is not illegitimate.... Read More
On Guriev
•�May 31, 2013
•�400 Words •�1 Comment
Apparently he fled to France after senior "systemic liberal" sources in the government told him he was not safe staying in Russia. So he played it safe. Interpretations about. The return of Stalinism; a new critical phase in the siloviki vs. civiliki clan war; Putin's vindictiveness against a supporter of Khodorkovsky. The only problem, at... Read More
Translation: Russia to Build 11 Centers of Tolerance
•�May 25, 2013
•�1,000 Words
Russia is to spend 1.5 billion rubles building "Centers of Tolerance" to improve inter-ethnic relations in the next few years. Is this a good use of resources? Pyotr Kozlov examines the issue. The Ministry of Regional Development plans to start constructing Centers of Tolerance all across Russia from 2014, where anyone can go to learn... Read More
The Stupid Witchhunt Against Levada
•�May 21, 2013
•�300 Words •�5 Comments
I think the real situation is somewhere in between the Kremlin's position and Mark Adomanis' and the rest of the Western and Russian liberal media's alarmism. So as far as this is concerned, I really do think Gudkov is exaggerating, not to even speak of the inevitable and hysterical comparisons to Stalinism cropping up in... Read More
Translation: Latvia Allows Double Citizenship... Except for Russians
•�May 20, 2013
•�600 Words •�1 Comment
The Latvian President has signed a law allowing Latvians to have double citizenship with other countries... except Russia. Moscow cries foul and calls on the EU to take action. Maria Efimova has the story. Latvian President Andris Bērziņš signed the law "On Citizenship," adopted by the Sejm on 9 May. This law allows Latvian citizens... Read More
Should I Give Up Already?
•�May 9, 2013
•�8 Comments
From a Freedom House publication:
The Russian Imperialist Genocide In Chechnya
•�April 20, 2013
•�300 Words •�42 Comments
Hard as it is to believe, but in the wake of the Boston Bombings, many Western commentators actively trying to find the roots of the Tsarnaev brothers' rage in Russia's "aggression" or even "genocide" of Chechnya. This is not to deny that Chechens did not have an exceptionally hard time of it in the 1990s.... Read More
The Anti-Magnitsky List
•�April 15, 2013
•�600 Words •�5 Comments
Here is the list of US citizens publicly barred from Russia in response to the US Magnitsky List. Are you familiar with any of them? Individuals alleged to be involved in the use and legalization of torture and indefinite confinement of prisoners - the "Guantanamo list": 1. David Spears Addington - Chief of Staff of... Read More
The Western Media's War Against Cyprus and Russia
•�March 21, 2013
•�1,700 Words •�42 Comments
If you ever manage to get a troupe as diverse as Latynina, Mark Adomanis, the Cypriot Communist Party, virtually every financial analyst, Prokhorov, and Putin united in condemning your crass stupidity and cack-handedness, it's probably time to stop and ponder. But it's safe to say that's not what the Troika - the European Commission, European... Read More
What I Learned from Freedom House…
•�March 5, 2013
•�600 Words •�4 Comments
My latest for the US-Russia Experts Panel and VoR. In this latest Panel, Vlad Sobell asks us supposed Russia “experts” whether Freedom House’s “alarmist stance” towards Russia is justified. Well, what do YOU think? I don’t think you need to be an expert to answer this; it’s an elementary issue of common sense and face... Read More
I Don't Care About Bradley Manning
•�February 28, 2013
•�400 Words •�8 Comments
No matter how you look at it, he is a traitor. He violated the UCMJ. Although he is free to make ethical arguments as to why he leaked Collateral Murder and the US Embassy cables, the US is fully within its rights to prosecute him. I'm quite consistent about this: Treason is a punishable offense,... Read More
The Decline of Russian Skinheads
•�February 19, 2013
•�200 Words •�25 Comments
It's not just the gopniks who are withering away; so are racist skinheads. According to the SOVA Center - an NGO which is about as anti-Kremlin as it gets, so no point in speculating that it cooks the figures for PR purposes - racist attacks in Russia have plummeted from their peak levels in 2007-2008,... Read More
My Article for Komsomolskaya Pravda On Press Freedoms In Russia and the West
•�February 5, 2013
•�900 Words •�4 Comments
Here it is in Russian: Вверх-вниз по рейтингу свободы. This translation here is of a longer version at my Russian language blog. A version of it also appears on Voice of Russia: Press freedom - on both sides of the Information Curtain. Thanks to Alexei Pankin (who is a regular at Komsomolskaya) for making it... Read More
Translation: "Either We Convert, or They Kill Us"
•�February 1, 2013
•�1,000 Words
Yuri Matsarsky meets up with Egyptian Christians who fled to Russia from the persecution of Islamist extremists. "Late one evening I was walking home after a meeting with friends, when I stopped to have a cigarette at the Domodedovskaya metro station and saw a crowd of people with small children at the entrance. By their... Read More
A Chess Game to the Death
•�January 29, 2013
•�700 Words •�4 Comments
I am back to writing for the US-Russia.org Expert Discussion Panel, which since my hiatus has found an additional home at Voice of Russia. The latest topic was on whether Russia, China, and the West could find a common approach to the challenges of the Arab Spring. My response is pessimistic, as in my view... Read More
The Guardian Censors You Even If You Don't Overtly Disagree with Them
•�January 21, 2013
•�1,000 Words •�7 Comments
Here is the article, by Nick Cohen. And below are the two comments (one by myself) that were censored. I have corrected a few grammatical points in this post. They were eventually restored, wonder of wonders, but only after two days - and therefore all interest - had passed, and after I had sent an... Read More
So Who's the New Clown At the Economist's Russia Desk?
•�January 4, 2013
•�700 Words •�25 Comments
I really did think it was getting better there under Joshu Yaffa, certainly it's not typical of him to write such vitriolic but more importantly factually inaccurate articles. Let's hope the world's sleaziest magazine was getting one of their old-timers to file for him that day, instead of representing the start of a new descent... Read More
Translation: Please Answer, Gérard!... (An Open Letter to Depardieu)
•�January 4, 2013
•�400 Words
In the wake of Gérard Depardieu's scandalous "defection" to Russia to escape high French income taxes, liberal Russian journalist Gleb Razdolnov yearns to know what the hell he was thinking. Dear Gérard! You've taken the decision to abandon your homeland, France. We will not talk of the reasons that prompted you to take this step.... Read More
Major Misconceptions About the Dima Yakovlev Law
•�December 30, 2012
•�2,700 Words •�23 Comments
1. For Russian orphans life is much more dangerous in Russia than in America. Let's agree to disregard the hidden subtext which implies that any country ought to give over its orphans to foreign nationals should it be ranked safer for children. Let's first examine if the claim that Russia is 39 times more dangerous... Read More
The Flight from Reason - the West's Cold War Against Russia
•�October 23, 2012
•�700 Words •�50 Comments
My latest contribution to the US-Russia.org Expert Discussion Panel this one focusing on whether the West foregoes "incalculable benefits" by continuing the Cold War. Unlike previous Panels, on which I aimed for balance, here I make no apologies at pointing a finger straight to where I believe the blame belongs: I recently began reading Martin... Read More
Translation: Russia Today Hired You to Talk About the Cynicism and Wickedness of the West (Konstantin von Eggert)
•�October 4, 2012
•�1,400 Words •�58 Comments
This post is a continuation of the last, and can otherwise be called "Konstantin von Eggert: A Case Study In Democratic Journalism (part 2)." Alternatively, one might view it as a refutation of claims that the Kremlin controls or censors the Russian media (Eggert's own protestations, hilarious and Orwellian in the context of what follows,... Read More
In Which I Become A Liberast: Criticism of Russia's Expulsion of USAID
•�October 1, 2012
•�600 Words •�13 Comments
The latest US-Russia.org Expert Discussion Panel focuses on whether Russia was correct to expel USAID on the grounds that it interfered in domestic Russian politics to an acceptable degree. Here is my contribution: I have no connection to USAID, or indeed to any American NGO operating in Russia or anywhere else. I do not pretend... Read More
Should the US Fight A New Cold War with Russia, or Cooperate with Russia to Integrate the Gap?
•�September 28, 2012
•�700 Words •�17 Comments
As I reported in my post unveiling US-Russia.org, there are going to be weekly discussion panels moderated by Vlad Sobell. This is the first one I participated in. It is on the topic of US-Russia Relations Against the Backdrop of Word-wide Muslim Protests. Is this a clash of civilizations? Should the US patch up ties... Read More
So Apparently Germany Is A Christian Theocracy
•�September 28, 2012
•�400 Words •�3 Comments
At least if you take Michael Bohm's arguments in his latest Moscow Times missive on how Russia Is Turning Into Iran to its logical conclusion. Look, I'm not a fan of blasphemy laws. The First Amendment is a wonderful thing and something that makes the US truly great... even exceptional, to an extent. Although it... Read More
Russia's New Anti-Corruption Law
•�September 12, 2012
•�700 Words •�7 Comments
Russia is preparing to "nationalize the elites" by forbidding bureaucrats (and their spouses and children) from owning property or bank accounts abroad. (1) This need hardly be said at this point but this does demonstrate that Russia is not the "kleptocracy" it is frequently described as. Why would kleptocrats purposefully make life any harder for... Read More
Authoritarian Parallels
•�August 30, 2012
•�300 Words •�2 Comments
One of the main theses of this blog is that in many respects, Russia is far more similar to the the "West" (and vice versa) than various democratists would have you believe. Case in point (h/t Jon Hellevig): "Mandatory" but "no one was forced to attend." Hmm... how does that work? This episode of Ohio... Read More
A Genuine Case of Miscarried Justice
•�August 30, 2012
•�100 Words •�6 Comments
Taisiya Osipova was sentenced to 8 eight years in jail for selling and possessing heroin. This was twice more even than what the prosecution requested. Even if the case was rock solid it would still be wildly disproportionate as she suffers from diabetes. But it's not; to the contrary, there are reasonable suspicions that the... Read More
Assange Should Have Picked the Russian Embassy
•�August 16, 2012
•�300 Words •�23 Comments
UK police descend on Assange's embassy refuge. According to the Ecuadorians, their Embassy was threatened with a revocation of its status as Ecuadorian sovereign territory in the case that President Rafael Correa offers Julian Assange political asylum. This would clear the way for PC Plod could go in and fish out Assange. Presumably this is... Read More
The Guardian's Pussy Worship
•�July 29, 2012
•�1,000 Words •�30 Comments
From their latest Editorial / anti-Putin rant, via Mercouris. It is not with the ideological rhetoric that I have an issue with; it's The Guardian, after all. Nor am I especially interested in defending Pussy Riot's prosecution (my own views on the matter jive with Kononenko's). I do however have an issue with the The... Read More
Modern Britain In Four Extradition Cases
•�June 29, 2012
•�300 Words •�1 Comment
Imagine you're a British extraditions judge and you are asked to rule on the following cases. (1) An oligarch exile who came from a country where he might well have ordered contract murders and is now loudly and implacably opposed to its new President who dispossessed him of his political influence. Although the British establishment... Read More
Will Ecuador Protect Assange from the Empire?
•�June 20, 2012
•�1,100 Words •�16 Comments
So Assange has fled to the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, in scenes reminiscent of what happens to dissidents in truly authoritarian countries. (The parallels keep adding up don't they). Let's recap. His site kept releasing classified documents, from secretive and typically nasty organizations. Too bad that some of them belonged to the Pentagon and the... Read More
� Earlier Items �
"Human Rights" Items Across Entire Archive
Anatoly Karlin
About Anatoly Karlin

I am a blogger, thinker, and businessman in the SF Bay Area. I’m originally from Russia, spent many years in Britain, and studied at U.C. Berkeley.

One of my tenets is that ideologies tend to suck. As such, I hesitate about attaching labels to myself. That said, if it’s really necessary, I suppose “liberal-conservative neoreactionary” would be close enough.

Though I consider myself part of the Orthodox Church, my philosophy and spiritual views are more influenced by digital physics, Gnosticism, and Russian cosmism than anything specifically Judeo-Christian.