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Persecution
of Maria Butina takes a nasty turn
The
arrest of Maria Butina, a pro Second Amendment Russian visitor, has
been topped by allegations of cruel treatment at American hands
20
August, 2018
The
Russian News Agency TASS
reported Monday August 20, 2018 that
Russian citizen Maria Butina has been suffering “inhumane and
degrading” treatment. Russian Ombudsperson Tatiana Moskalkova gave
the following statement on her website:
“I would like to express my utmost concern at the actions of US prison authorities during the transfer of Russian citizen Maria Butina from Washington to Alexandria (Virginia State) prison… There are clear signs of cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment, punishment by the US government and violation of the rules of international law.”
RT
also reported on this matter on
Sunday, 19 August, noting that the 29 year old Russian gun rights
activist was moved to a different prison without warning. The Russian
embassy claimed that her new conditions are bordering on torture. The
report of her incarceration conditions is frustrating and saddening
to read:
The Russian embassy in the US, which has been closely following Butina’s case, says she was transferred from her Washington jail handcuffed, without warning or explanation for the move. Before the move, Butina was subjected to a “degrading full strip search,” and all her things were taken away, including books, shoes, towels and other hygiene items.
Butina was moved to a prison in Alexandria, Virginia, and spent the next 12 hours in a quarantine cell with no food and all the lights on, unable to sleep. She will now be kept in “administrative segregation,”which means locked up in solitary confinement – conditions bordering on torture, the embassy says.
Embassy staff paid an emergency visit to Butina in her new place of detention. They also intend to send another note of official protest to the US Department of State, in addition to the one recently filed over the inhumane treatment of the Russian citizen.
“We have more and more questions to the U.S. justice system,” the embassy says in a Facebook post. “Should allegations pressed against Maria before the actual trial condemn her to practices that are slightly below torture? It seems that the reason behind the US decision to withdraw from the UN Human Rights Council was to give the US authorities green light for such provocations.”
The
majority of US government agencies have been pursuing an increasingly
aggressive stance towards the Russian Federation without any hard
evidence for cause for over two years now. In the last week a painful
sanctions package was approved which goes into effect on Wednesday
this week.
As
we have reported at the Duran,
this action appears to be serving
a dual purpose –
to isolate and hurt Russia in her own ability to remain sovereign and
not part of the globalist agenda, and at the same time to create a
situation through which the removal of US President Donald Trump may
be initiated after the midterms in November.
Added
to this is the recent arrest and imprisonment of 29-year-old Maria
Butina,
a Russian political activist who supports a Russian pro-gun group
called “Right to Bear Arms.” In this regard, she was a known
presence at gun-rights lobbies in the US, where she was living and
studying at the American University in Washington, DC.
Her
involvement in US politics, notably the National Rifle Association
and her alliances with Republicans and conservatives in the US made
her a target for accusation as a Russian agent, presumably to further
bolster the idea that Trump and by extension, members of the
Republican Party at large were in alliance with with the Russians in
the like manner as the “election collusion” narrative that has
been the dead weight on the Trump presidency since before day one.
Butina
is being held on conspiracy charges that would be laughable to even
think of any other time.
Like
Russiagate, these charges are unsubstantiated.
Like
Russiagate, these charges are in reaction to the fact that Mr. Trump
won the presidency and not Hillary Clinton.
And,
like Russiagate, these charges are a major attempt to cut Russia off
from the world, simply because Russia will not play the globalist
game. Again
here, one need only refer to Vladimir
Putin’s speech in Valdai in 2013 to see the battle lines that are
drawn.
One
can only wonder at the insanity of the American government apparatus
and the power that seems to be operating through it. This is not the
way the United States used to be.
US
President Donald Trump set tongues wagging when he admitted he could
potentially “consider” lifting sanctions on Russia if Moscow ever
makes concessions and does something “good” for Washington on
issues like Syria and Ukraine.
“I
haven’t thought about it. But no, I’m not considering it at
all,” Trump
responded to Reuters’ question about whether he would consider
lifting sanctions against Russia. “I
would consider it if they do something that would be good for us. But
I wouldn’t consider it without that,” he
added. “In
other words, I wouldn’t consider it, even for a moment, unless
something was go — we have a lot of things in common. We have a lot
of things we can do good for each other.”
Trump
made the comment during an interview with Reuters at the Oval Office
on Monday, which covered a range of topics from social media
censorship and tensions with Turkey to the Federal Reserve and
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s 'Russiagate' probe. It was unclear
which sanctions Trump might have been referring to, just as it wasn’t
clear what exactly Russia would need to do to get them lifted.
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