REPRESSION TARGETS CHITA ANARCHISTS ALREADY JAILED FOR WAR RESISTANCE AND ANTI-REGIME GRAFFITI ~ Antti Rautiainen ~ The regional prosecutor’s office for the Trans-Baikal region in eastern Siberia has submitted a petition to a local court to recognize the “Trans-Baikal Left Association” as a terrorist organisation. The petition refers to the telegram channel 75zlo, allegedly maintained by jailed anarchists Aleksandr Snezhkov and Lyubov Lizunova, which the petition asks to declare as “leaders” of this association. The court hearing is scheduled for January 13. Currently the channel has 72 subscribers, and no posts have been published there since the anarchists were detained. If the court agrees with the prosecutor’s office and recognises 75zlo as a “terrorist community”, any activity related to it will be prohibited. In Russia, “forming a terrorist organisation” is punishable from 15 years in prison to a life sentence. Aleksandr does not agree with the prosecutor’s claim and will seek to participate in the hearing. Snezhkov and Lizunova, then 19 and 16 years old, were arrested in October 2022 in Chita, Eastern Siberia, and accused of “vandalism” and “propaganda of terrorism” for spraying graffiti against the regime and maintaining anti-war Telegram channels. More than two years later, in November 2024, they were sentenced by a military court to 6 and 3.5 years in prison, respectively. 75 is the regional code of the Trans-Baikal region used in car licence plates, and zlo is an acronym for both the Trans-Baikal Left Association and the popular anti-police slogan “to revenge everything on cops”. Last October, Snezhkov was sentenced to an additional five years for “justification of terrorism” for reading his case files to his cellmates. During his imprisonment, Snezhkov has been sent to solitary confinement for long periods, last spring he spent 90 days in the hole. During his current pre-trial detention he was again sent to the hole for 20 days. Recently, a support group announced a collection of 280 thousand rubles (about £2,600) to help the two anarchists for costs of parcels during the next six months. Letters of support must be written in Russian (use auto-translate) and can be sent to Aleksandr at: Снежкову Александру Евгеньевичу 2003 г.р. Россия, 672010, Забайкальский край, г. Чита, ул Ингодинская, 1а, СиЗО-1. России по Забайкальскому краю and to Lyubov at: Лизуновой Любови Витальевне, 2006 г.р. Россия, 670000, г.Улан-Удэ, ул.Пристанская, 4-а, ИК-7 It is also possible to write to Alexandr via prisonmail.online using region “Zabaykalsky Krai” and prison “SIZO-1 Chita” -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- With information from Moscow Anarchist Black Cross, Fires of Freedom and Ivan Astashin The post Russia plans to declare anti-war Telegram channel a “terrorist organisation” appeared first on Freedom News.

AMAZON TARGETED FOR COMPLICITY IN ISRAEL’S GAZA GENOCIDE, TELEKOM FOR COOPERATION WITH THE GERMAN MILITARY AND ELON MUSK’S STARLINK—COMMUNIQÉ ~ Juju Alerta ~ An anti-militarist group has claimed responsibility for two arson attacks on commercial vehicles from Amazon and Deutsche Telekom in the early hours of Tuesday. The Amazon vans were torched on a site on Koppelweg, in the south of the German capital, while Telekom parking was situated in Lichtenberg in Berlin’s east, reported German media. No people were hurt. In a communiqé, the un-named group said it was “celebrating” the opening of the new Amazon Tower in Berlin, citing disgust with the company’s lending its computing power to the Israeli military (along with Google and Microsoft). “The destruction and starvation in Gaza unfolding before our eyes, the planned complete relocation of the population, and the AI-based massacre and mutilation of hundreds of thousands of people, including many children, are being calculated and stored on Amazon Web Services’ servers”, said the group. It also named Amazon as a key contractor for the American military and a “generous sponsor of King Trump’s military parade … State and capital in lockstep toward fascism”. Telekom was targeted due to its “support for the Bundeswehr” and as a “supplier of IT to border authorities, police, and intelligence services”, said the communiqué. The activists also cited T-Systems, which works in collaboration with Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite network. Citing Amazon’s competing Project Kuiper, the text said that “Musk and Bezos, with their corporate networks, are thus technocrats who not only profit from wars but can now influence their course”. “Demanding life against militarism and technologies of death is right, just as it is right to claim and defend antimilitarism against nationalism”, concluded the commuiqué, “It is right to liberate life from all militarism and war, from the state and patriarchy”. Amazon condemned the act, a spokesperson told Reuters, while Deutsche Telekom said it could not comment on pending investigations. These attacks are not unusual, noted observers. In 2020 and 2021 more than 400 cars were set alight in Berlin. In 2021, the total number of cars, including those that caught fire when vehicles in the vicinity were torched, surpassed 700. The post Berlin: Anti-militarists claim arson of Amazon and Deutsche Telekom vehicles appeared first on Freedom News.

ALEXY ROZHKOV SENTENCED TO 16 YEARS, RUSLAN SIDIKI FACES LIFE IMPRISONMENT FOR POLITICAL ‘TERRORISM’ CHARGES ~ Josie Ó Súileabháin ~ In the military court of Yekaterinburg, Alexy Rozhkov was sentenced to 16 years yesterday (May 20th) for setting fire to a military enlistment office. Also yesterday in Ryazan military court, Ruslan Sidiki took the stand in his own trial, accused of destroying railway tracks, leading to the derailment of nineteen carriages of fertiliser. Arrested in November 2023, Sidiki is also accused of the attempted destruction of military aircraft, on both occasions using remotely operated GPS guided drones. Both anarchists admit to the acts they are responsible for, but deny the political charge of terrorism. Rozhkov was initially accused of “damage to property” after the authorities unsuccessfully tried to charge him for “attempted murder” of a security guard within the enlistment office. After fleeing Russia to Kyrgyzstan, he was kidnapped by the security services and deported back to Russia. “I just understood that one cannot remain indifferent”, Rozhkov said in an interview with DOXA shortly before his arrest and illegal deportation. “What is happening now is illegitimate, it is illegal. Any war is death for ordinary citizens”. He was the third person in Russia to set fire to an enlistment office following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in March 2022. Sidiki, for his part, says he did not see any other means of resistance except direct action. The destruction of railway infrastructure to stop the movement of explosives towards the border with Ukraine was planned to ensure that humans would not be harmed in the damaging of military infrastructure. “I plead guilty in part” Sidiki told the court. “I do not recognise the fact of training terrorist activities, I had the skills before. I do not recognise the qualifications(of terrorism), since the goal was sabotage, not the intimidation of the population. I don’t recognise the preparation of the (third) explosion. The components found in my house are chemicals, as I was fond of agrochemistry and crop production”. Acts of sabotage against the railway in Russia are more common with record numbers of arson actions against railway infrastructure recorded in 2024. A large amount of those who are caught and sentenced are young adults or teenagers. 16-year-old Pavel Khazov was sentenced to nine years, and 17-year-old Space Nevolainen, six years in prison, as their names were added to a list of ‘terrorists’ for setting fire to an empty train cab. Ruslan Sidiki Mediazona reported the cases of thirteen minors charged for setting fire to relay boxes for the railway, or military equipment. Some reported that they were paid to do so by an anonymous person. Pavel reported that he was paid by a man called ‘Gustav’ to burn the train, yet this clear cohesion of minors still somehow qualifies them as terrorists in the eyes of the law. These is a clear indications of political show-trials, transforming acts of property damage into acts of terror in order to drum up support for the war in Ukraine and create an internal enemy for Russians to fight, an enemy in the pay of another, foreign enemy. In the case of Ruslan Sidiki, he is not only accused of the acts that he did commit. He is accused of being in the pay of the Ukrainian Intelligence Services; his revolutionary acts only an exchange for British citizenship and cash.  ACCOUNTS OF TORTURE (CW) He has admitted to “the preparation of the (third) explosion” only while tortured by the Russian authorities. Despite making a complaint, this violence has still not been investigated as the trial of Sidiki continues. Three weeks after the attack on a military airfield, he was arrested and taken to the police station. Sidiki was handed over to plain clothes security forces who demanded he admitted his guilt or he would be tortured and then taken out of town and executed. They would make it look like he tried to escape, they told him. “When I was lying on the floor, they stepped on my hands and on my feet so that I could not move them, although I did not resist”, Sidiki recalled in Mediazona “…then one of them said to someone, “Call!” At that moment, the discharge of electric current went through my body, greatly contracting the muscles to unbearable pain, I was screaming a lot and hitting my head on the floor, one of them was standing in front of me and filming me on my phone”. Sidiki was threatened with sexual assault, dismemberment of extremities and asked a number confusing questions while being electrocuted. “In my opinion”, Sidiki recalled, “the discharge from their apparatus for torture was comparable to a rosette category of 220 volts. Since I work as an electrician, in my life there were times when I got under that voltage, and I can compare the effect”. “The exact time as long as the torture lasted, I can not say, since after a few shocks my mind blurred, I can say that it is unbearably painful”. A correspondent from Mediazona is following Sidiki’s case, as well as Solidarity Zone, as both are attempting to report from the court despite severe restrictions imposed by Judge Oleg Shishov prohibiting journalists from recording the proceedings. “I was put in a car where there were only people in masks”, Sidiki recalls. “I think it was not accidental, and the investigator and lawyer drove in another car. I was taken to the locations of hiding places and sabotage, where, having left the IVS, I was immediately beaten by people in masks in the area of the head, chest and abdomen”. “Also, these people had a stun gun in the form of a baton, and most of the time I was electrocuted until the charge ran out. From this stun gun on the body there are traces-burns in the form of points, it also burns clothes”. “I am still afraid for my life and health from these people who tortured and beat me after being detained”, Sidiki said. The prosecutor’s case against Sidiki attempts to move away from his politics as an anarchist, as the defining feature of his accused terrorism. Residents and childhood friends have been pulled into court in some attempt to find someone adversely effected by the actions of Sidiki. The train driver had his complaints and demanded millions of Roubles in compensation. The anarchist conceded ‘dryly’ that a ‘moral injury’ was done to the driver. After all, he was only driving a train full of explosives towards a country being invaded his own. Alexy Rozhkov. Photo: Mediazona Yet despite accusations that Sidiki was in the pay of Ukrainian intelligence, reported only in the discredited TASS state media, his targets appeared personal and more grounded to the politics the Russian Federation would like to ignore: those of sabotage and direct action against authoritarianism. “The hum of the Tu-22 and Tu-95 outside the window coincided with the strikes on Ukraine, and this determined my choice of target: the Dyagilevo military airfield, just ten kilometres from home. I lived with an 80-year-old grandmother and understood how hard it is for the elderly and sick without heat and light in winter”, Sidiki writes, reported by Solidarity Zone. “Filling the bathtub with hot water, I thought about those who were deprived of basic conditions a thousand kilometres away because of geopolitical ambitions. And at the same time, they still talk about “brotherly nations” and that “Russia does not fight civilians”. “In my understanding, being an anarchist is, if possible, to help or participate in nearby projects”, he says in Mediazona. “Participate in actions, the essence of which is the protection of the rights and freedoms of the working people. If circumstances allow, bring your ideas to the right people. Acquire new knowledge and skills that allow you to do the above more effectively”. “When I was in jail”, Rozhkov said in an interview before his arrest, “a lawyer came to me from the Anarchist Black Cross. I was offered help. We also asked some questions: do I want to receive letters, help, transfers and publicize the case? I refused support and publicity, but I decided that it would be nice to receive letters from people who remained indifferent, who help people like us in captivity. The letters really helped me a lot…” “If you want to somehow brighten up the life of prisoners”, Sidiki says , “write letters, send postcards, it makes you smile, despite all the hardships”. Messages to Ruslan Sidiki and Alexy Rozhkov should be translated into Russian and sent either to Solidarity Zone or via the following addresses: 620019, Russia, Yekaterinburg, Repina street, 4, SIZO-1, Rozhkov Alexey Igorevich 1997 125130, Moscow, st. Vyborgskaya, d. 20, SIZO-5, Sidiki Ruslan Kasemovich 1988 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Top photos: Mediazona, SOTAvision The post Russia: Anarchist war saboteurs on trial appeared first on Freedom News.