Solominsky was detained after an apparent clash with police on October 9. A group of men in plain clothes, believed to be officers of a regional St. Petersburg police department, had blocked off access to the Khasansky market complex. When Solominsky asked them for official identification, he was beaten into a concussion, thrown into a car without police license plates, and taken to the 13th Police Precinct.

Although the beating was captured on video, prosecutors have refused to initiate criminal proceedings against the police. Instead, a suit was brought against Solominsky, charging him with “public insult of a representative of authority.” The charge carries a sentence of 6 months to 1 year of remedial labor. Police have placed Solominsky under house arrest.

“Petersburg authorities, obviously,” he says, “have decided to deal with the oppositionists who have long annoyed them.”

Signatories of the petition include writer Vladimir Bukovsky, politician Boris Nemtsov, political analyst Andrei Piontkovsky, Right Cause member Boris Nadezhdin, journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza, Cato Institute senior fellow Andrei Illarionov, Yabloko member Yevgeniya Dilendorf, Solidarity executive director Denis Bilunov, Solidarity member Sergei Davidis, and many others.

According to the petition, Solominsky had previously been detained for distributing books written by Bukovsky, a Soviet political dissident, and for organizing an “unsanctioned” rally of businessmen.

Police abuse is notorious in Russia. A recent study estimated that 1 in 25 people are tortured, beaten, or harassed by law enforcement officials in Russia each year. An activist in the city of Voronezh claims he was abducted and tortured by police on October 31 as a result of his participation in opposition activities.

Andrei Illarionov is a former policy advisor to the Russian president, is now an opposition leader. The statement first appeared on his LiveJournal blog.

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A Statement by the Liberal Charter alliance

The Liberal Charter alliance expresses its fundamental disagreement with the measures taken by Russian authorities in the financial crisis, and puts forth the principles of a fiscal policy that a government responsible to the citizens of Russia must take.

1. Today’s financial crisis in Russia has foreign and domestic causes. The most important external cause of this crisis is the world monetary system, which goes through cyclical phases of boom and bust. Such instability is created first of all by modern money, which governments can issue in any amount, combined with a wide range of government privileges and guarantees provided to commercial banks. Interest rates held at artificially low levels and government loan guarantees stimulate the growth of credit that is not backed by real savings, leading to less responsibility on the part of creditors and borrowers, and a collapse of confidence in financial assets.

The main culprits of the global financial crisis are the fiscal authorities in the U.S. and European countries, who have pursued a policy of so-called “cheap” money in recent years. The governments of other countries, including Russia, also carry their share of responsibility for spreading and worsening the crisis. Government encouragement of credit expansion has led to massive investments into overly risky, inefficient, and unsalable projects. The illusion of the accessibility of investment resources, created by governments, has led to a decline in the quality of issued loans and purchased securities. As result, many banks have been unable to meet their obligations before depositors.

2. The Russian authorities have contributed their share to the financial “bubble” in our country. Due to their privileged status, state-owned and partly state-owned banks and companies borrowed heavily on foreign and domestic markets. In doing so, short-term loans were used for long-term investments, and to finance expenditures growing out of control. The disappearance of cheap credit destroyed such financial “pyramids”. With a fall in equity prices, companies whose shares were put as collateral to private and partly state-owned companies to obtain credit were now under threat of handing ownership to those creditors, including foreign ones. The threat that companies would be punished for their irresponsible borrowing policies became an instrument of their pressure on authorities, and the basis for transferring their colossal accumulated debts to the federal budget.

3. Provoked by government intervention, the mistakes made by banks and businesses are at the present largely irreversible; serious problems can no longer be avoided. The economy must undergo a period to correct those mistakes.

4. Presently, the primary danger to the global and Russian economies are the so-called “anti-crisis programs” put on by governments, which are hidden behind demagogic statements that the “free market” is supposedly to blame for the current crisis. Government intervention, which hinders the culling of inefficient investment projects, blocks the review of mistaken decisions and puts off the bankruptcy of irresponsible businesses, only deepens and extends the financial crisis, turning an inevitable short-term economic decline into a long-term depression. In world history, it is precisely the interference with market mechanisms that has had such dire consequences, such as the US Great Depression from 1929-33, or the transformation of Great Britain into the “sick man of Europe” from 1961-79, or the Japanese stagnation from 1991-2004.

5. The Liberal Charter alliance expresses a fundamental disagreement with the actions already undertaken, as well as the stated intentions of the Russian authorities – the president, parliament, government, and the Bank of Russia. Their plans of uncontrolled intervention in the country’s economy are, among other things, a disregard for the rule of law and the existing legislation, the undoing of the separation of powers, and the dismantling of democratic institutions accountable to the people.

We believe that the proposed measures are wrong. [These include] the use of federal resources, administered by the Government and Bank of Russia, to finance irresponsible borrowers, to support banks and stock market speculators who risked their client’s money, as well as acquiring shares of those companies that the market has lost confidence in. These measures will squander the federal gold reserves, which guarantee the value and free convertibility of the Russian ruble. They will inevitably result in higher prices for the public, who will end up paying for benefits essentially doled out to businessmen and managers close with the authorities. The concentration of financial resources in the hands of bureaucrats and their “inner circle” is aimed at further monopolization of property and power in our country.

6. In this time of crisis, a government responsible before the Russian people must follow financial policies based upon the following principles:

-Maintaining the exchange rate of the ruble against the pre-determined dollar and euro currency basket. A guarantee of the sanctity of gold reserves in the Bank of Russia to back 100% of issued Russian rubles. Continuing a responsible monetary policy, dictated by the basic principles of respect for property rights and meeting ones obligations, even if these obligations were not explicitly formalized.

-Preserving a deficit-free budget, where expenditures do not exceed revenues, [and committing to] prohibit the growth of public debt. At a time of unavoidable economic stagnation, public expenditures must be lowered proportionately with the fall in government revenues.

-Establishing transparent mechanisms for distributing assistance from the state budget and special endowments. Excluding the possibility that these funds will head to privileged banks and companies. The main way to use the budget surplus, which has accumulated in special endowments, must either be the return of previously collected taxes, or a reduction in future taxes.

– Directing funds from the budget and special endowments to commercial banks only in exceptional cases, and only through the mechanism of returning money to depositors (the so-called “monetization of bank liabilities”). The banks subjected to this measure must undergo bankruptcy proceedings. This provides an effective countermeasure to owners stripping assets, and allows for an open and transparent sale of all assets, with revenues going to the state budget. The expansion of a government role in the banking system’s equity is impermissible.

-It is unacceptable to use budgetary funds to rescue bankrupt companies. It is unacceptable to increase the government’s direct or indirect control over the real sector of the economy. Irresponsible business owners and managers should be punished by having the encumbered shares of bankrupt Russian companies transferred to their creditors– independent from their citizenship or country of registration. Bankruptcy sales must be carried out in open and transparent auctions.

-Reducing government intervention in the financial sector. The reorganization of the financial regulatory system on the principles of competition and free enterprise.

-Reform of the monetary regulatory system. The Bank of Russia should maintain its aim of supporting the value of the ruble, even as it ceases the additional powers granted it under the “anti-crisis measures.” Regulation of banks should be transferred to a separate government body. [This would] eliminate the privileges given to commercial banks, which arise from the Bank of Russia’s joint function of “printing” rubles and regulating the banking system.

7. The Liberal Charter alliance marks that the result of the so-called “anti-crisis programs” proposed by authorities will be the deepening and widening of the financial crisis, and the transition of a short-term recession into an extended depression. Preserving mistakes made during an economic boom, continuing the policy of promoting risky loans, and the misuse of public resources for false purposes will inevitably lead to grave financial, economic and social consequences. Russia does not need to repeat mistakes made more than once by authorities in the US, the European Union and other countries.

The only guarantee of the Russian economy’s competitive edge and long-term success, and that of the whole Russian society– is the freedom of entrepreneurship by Russian citizens. [Further, the] government must respect property rights and carry out responsible, consistent and ethical economic policies.

translation by theotherrussia.org

Illarionov believes that Russia has become completely isolated in its foreign policy, as only Cuba supported Russia’s Georgian campaign.

“The G8 has, in effect, become the G7, ” Illarionov asserts.

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The Second Georgian War: Preliminary Conclusions
Andrei Illarionov
Yezhednevny Zhurnal
August 13, 2008.
[translation by Kerkko Paananen, Finrosforum]

1. The war against Georgia was a brilliant provocation carefully planned and successfully carried out by the Russian leadership. The campaign was practically identical to the plan carried out in another theatre at another time — [Chechen warlord Shamil] Basaev’s attack into Dagestan and the beginning of the second Chechen war in 1999.

2. In the new situation that has taken shape following the war, Georgians may find a legitimate reason to recognise Georgia’s de facto loss of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

3. The military losses of Georgia are greater than those of Russia. At the same time, however, the financial, foreign policy, and moral losses of Russia are much more significant than those of Georgia.

4. The Russian leadership did not achieve its main goal — the ouster of [Georgian President] Mikheil Saakashvili, change of the political regime in Georgia, and Georgia’s rejection of membership in NATO. Rather, the opposite has happened.

5. The international community regards Russia as the aggressor that brought its forces into the territory of another member state of the United Nations. The international community regards Georgia as the victim of aggression.

6. Russia has found itself in almost total isolation in foreign policy terms. Only Cuba supported Russia’s intervention in Georgia. Neither Iran, nor Venezuela or Uzbekistan, not even Belarus said a word in Russia’s support.

7. The G8 has, in effect, become the G7. The series of foreign policy defeats of the Russian leadership, beginning with the Rose Revolution in Georgia in 2003 and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004, and including the NATO summit in Bucharest in April 2008, was now followed by yet another fiasco.

8. The Russian leadership succeeded in something that the rest of the world did not (want to) believe: The resurgence of fear of the “Russian bear”. This fear and — be it temporary — sense of powerlessness is something that the world will not forget for a long time.

9. Russians with no access to sources for news other than the official, found themselves in total isolation in terms of information. The degree of manipulation of public opinion, and the speed with which the society was brought to mass hysteria, are clear evidence of the regime’s “achievements,” and pose an undeniable and unprecedented danger to the Russian society.

10. The institutional catastrophe, about which I have had to speak about many times before, is happening before our very own eyes. Its main — albeit not the only — victim will be the Russian people.

11. The war helped reveal the true faces of some so-called liberals and democrats, who previously had condemned the “imperial syndrome,” but when it manifested itself, quickly caved in to the regime, calling for an attack on Tbilisi and for the reinforcement of Russia’s defence and law enforcement agencies.

12. The only political institution, members of which were capable of formulating differing opinions regarding the war (including those, with whom I do not agree in principle) and discussing them, was the National Assembly. In effect, the National Assembly proved — in a moment of crisis — that it is better able than any other institution to function as a proto-parliament.

13. The war confirmed once more the validity of the most important principles of conduct of morally conscious Russian citizens in relation to the present regime:
–do not believe,
–do not fear,
–do not beg,
–do not cooperate.