Fullofbias

One rule every Russian knows is that it can always get worse. That’s what happened in the trial of opposition activist Taisia Osipova, charged with drug trafficking. The prosecutor demanded a modest four years in prison for her. Earlier, the key prosecution witness admitted in court that the drugs in question had been planted by police detectives. But, in an unprecedented move, the judge sentenced her to a whopping eight years. Normally judges in political trial sentence people to just under what the prosecution demand. That happened in Khodorkovsky and Pussy Riot cases.

This is the second time Osipova goes on trial, charged with the same crime. She had been already sentenced to 10 years, but the Supreme Court overturned the sentence after the then president Medvedev said that it was too harsh. Osipova has a small daughter and claims to suffer from diabetes. But of course whatever Medvedev has said matters little in this new epoch of repression.

So if there is any logic in what the authorities are doing, it is the logic of bespredel – unlimited evil. The point is proving that you can be more evil than anybody ever imagined. And that the “aggressively-obedient majority”, as Yury Afanasyev called it many years ago, will swallow this extra evil without hesitation.

All of this is only natural for people who originate from the organization which made terror a state policy and was totally open about it. Like the CheKa operatives 90 years ago, their 21st century heirs are trying to say this: “Yes, we are evil, and we are very proud of it. Don’t ever mess with us, because our evil has no limits”.