Russian Jews Worry for Future After Killing of Opposition Leader Boris Nemtsov

[Behind the Aegis]

Moscow — During the past two years, Dima Zicer has skipped several political rallies opposing the chauvinistic policies of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

A Jewish scholar of education from St. Petersburg, Zicer, 55, has limited hope for change in a country that is ranked 148th in the Press Freedom Index and where several of Putin’s critics have either died under mysterious circumstances or been jailed for what they and many Western observers say are trumped-up corruption charges.

On Sunday, however, Zicer marched through St. Petersburg with 10,000 people, many of them Jewish, in protest of the murder in central Moscow of Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister. Nemtsov, an opposition leader, was gunned down on Saturday just hours after he urged fellow citizens to attend a rally against Russia’s involvement in the war in Ukraine.

No arrests have been made in the killing, which took place on the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion into Crimea. Russia has since annexed the Crimean Peninsula.


Read more: http://forward.com/articles/215837/russian-jews-worry-for-future-after-killing-of-opp/#ixzz3Tao8hhqK

[newthinking]

1. Presenting Nemtsov as an "opposition leader" is a talking point and not true

The primary opposition in Russia is actually the communist party. But of course the mainstream media will never give up a good emotional narrative for investigative truth.

Nemtsov had very little political capital in the country. His party was not even able to garner enough votes to get a single seat in their duma.

That is one of the reasons that most scholars of the Russian culture think there was no motive for Putin to have been involved. Much more likely someone who did not like him because of of his stance on Ukraine.

He was in power during the "mafia years" as well and could likely has other enemies. Truly a tragedy. But the reporting on it has been awful.

[Behind the Aegis]

2. So your claim is he was not an opposition leader?

Because he wasn't "popular enough" he wasn't a "real" opposition leader? The article expresses that Putin might not have been involved. Any one could have killed him, but that isn't the real point of the article.

[MattSh]

3. Very true...

A poll last year revealed that 1/2 those polled didn't recognize his name. And overall, he had an approval rating of 1%.

[uhnope]

5. first the assassination, then the "but he wasn't important" BS

[uhnope]

4. first the real assassination, then the character assassination

[uhnope]

6. Stalin pretended to support Jewish cultural leaders--until he had them all killed in 1952

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017249672

Putin is demonizing gays, liberals, journalists--and Jews traditionally become scapegoats in Russia. Russian intelligence fabricated The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, for crying out loud. They invented modern anti-Semiticism; Hitler ran with it.

Harsh to think that less than ten years after Hitler's Holocaust, Stalin conducted a Final Solution on the Jewish soul when he killed every major writer of Yiddish in Russia.