Category World News

One of Russia’s most well-known authors is Boris Akunin. His series of historical detective stories, adapted for screen and on-demand, have been made. He is also a state foe, having been called a “foreign agent” by the Russian government last year.

Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has been a public enemy, according to Akunin, whose real name is Grigory Chkhartishvili.

The least of my issues is with the label “foreign agent.” More than a thousand “foreign agents” are already there, Akunin told Al Jazeera from London.

This is nothing in comparison to the fact that a military court sentenced me to 14 years in prison for “justifying terrorism,” or the right of Ukraine to defend itself, and that it also put me on the international wanted list. ”

Before September 1, when new restrictions were in effect, book stores and other Russian retailers had already been removing Akunin’s books from shelves.

Booksellers now face difficulties in their businesses, such as possible fines and being prohibited from working with libraries and other public institutions, even though selling books by designated “foreign agents” is not formally a crime.

The law forbids the participation of ‘so-called foreign agents’ in campaigns or educational programs. Additionally, it forbids them from serving on state corporations’ boards or from receiving local government support.

In response, many retailers have recently been removing the authors from their shelves.

There was a lot of interest in these rogue authors, according to Artem Faustov, the owner of Vse Svobodny (“Everybody is Free”), an independent book store in St Petersburg.

Nearly all of the ‘foreign agent’ books had been sold out by September 1, he claimed.

We were exempt from offering discounts. And because customers kept coming, we remained open until midnight on August 31 for another two hours after closing. The last books from foreign agents are being returned to publishers. ”

Unsold books are most likely to be pulped if there isn’t enough room in the warehouse.

not in a ‘normal world’

The latest in a stringent censorship crackdown has been placed on Russia’s literary scene.

Some of the most well-known books from the Soviet Union, including Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, which features the devil visiting 1930s Moscow, were heavily redacted or completely banned. Before being completely repealed in 1993, when the new constitution made it clear that censorship was prohibited, the rules gradually loosened over the years.

However, under Putin’s presidency, censorship has steadily been back in the 21st century.

In 2013, Russia outlawed what it perceived as “LGBT propaganda,” which was ambiguous and meant in reality to include non-heterosexual relationships and identities in children’s discussions.

This law was expanded to include adults in 2022, and an “international LGBT movement” was established as an “extremist organization”. Supporting it is a criminal offense, despite the absence of any other formal organization.

The new book-related laws, which were originally intended to amend an existing education law, apply retroactively, allowing violators to be held accountable even though their actions at the time were not yet against the law.

St. Petersburg police searched the century-old bookshop Podpisniye Izdaniya in April for books with the title “LGBT ideology” and other feminism-related themes. Then, in May, three Eksmo and Individuum publishing houses’ employees were detained for “extremism” in relation to the Soviet Union’s Pioneer Summer, a gay coming-of-age story set in the Soviet Union, in May.

Since the publication of this novel, new “LGBT propaganda” laws have been passed. “We can now define extremism by selling books with queer characters,” said Felix Sandalov, former editor-in-chief of Individuum and director of the international publisher StraightForward.

He claimed that the book “drew the attention of the state” after the novel’s sales increased.

After a year tracing the paper trail from book sellers to the alleged masterminds of the LGBT conspiracy, investigators arrested Sandalov’s former colleagues in a coordinated sweep on May 15. The three suspects recently received restricted bank accounts after being added to a list of terrorists and extremists.

In the real world, such things should only occur following a court order, but we are undoubtedly not in that situation, Sandalov said.

topics of taboo

Since Russia’s massive invasion of Ukraine in 2022 resulted in severe penalties for those who openly question the official accounts, including serving time in prison.

Other taboo subjects include the prohibition of “propaganda” that promotes child-free lifestyles, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union comparisons, and the “international Satanism movement”.

An updated version of the law governing the positive or neutral portrayal or discussion of illicit drugs will be implemented in the coming year.

Although lawmakers have promised that no classic works published before 1990 will be subject to the same restrictions as his books The Master and Margarita for their Satanic themes and Morphine, a young doctor who uses an opioid to treat patients, were they published today?

The Russian Book Union established a panel of experts last year to examine books for forbidden content, including those from the Orthodox Church and Roskomnadzor’s online regulatory body.

Beyond their official duties, concerned citizens, like those of the Russian Community Violent, who frequently lodge official complaints about “immoral” or “unpatriotic” content.

There are too many books available to manually check for potential heresy, Sandalov said.

There are also thousands of willing helpers eager to report anything suspicious to the authorities, “on the one hand.” Publishers have started using AI to filter out illegal content, which is a relatively recent innovation.

The Chinese AI Qwen is currently being used by the biggest player. Although it struggles to capture context, it is powerful enough to process a lot of titles. ”

In his newsletter Papercuts, Sandalov broke the news about AI.

Self-censorship involves excluding offensive passages from text in a declassified form. Complete pages have been blacked out in a biography of the gay Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini.

The literary industry has still found ways to bypass the strict standards. One way to mask controversial concepts in sci-fi or fantasy settings is by depicting alternative, dystopian Russia, for instance. Another method is printing their artwork abroad.

The opposition-minded diaspora has spawned an alternative publishing sector that is unconstrained by the constraints of the motherland. Sandalov’s StraightForward is one of these new publishers.

In Berlin, he claimed, there were more than 100 publishing houses founded by Russian immigrants in the 1920s. The majority didn’t even last ten years. However, those who survived made an impact and contributed to the tamizdat [dissident diaspora literature] system, which was a method for entering and leaving the USSR. As Russia transforms into a black hole, that perspective comes back to haunt me once more. ”

However, the reality is still depressing for Akunin, who also publishes books overseas through his BAbook publishing house.

He claimed that dictatorship and freedom of speech are incompatible.

After Israel claimed to have launched “powerful” strikes on Houthi command sites, several buildings in a residential neighborhood in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, have been destroyed. The Houthis have launched drone and missile attacks against Israel since Israel started a genocidal war against Gaza.

A wave of recognition from Western countries – led by France, the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada – means that 157 countries now recognise a Palestinian state.

The latest countries to recognise Palestine include strong allies of Israel who have tried to frame the recognition as an attempt to keep alive the idea of a two-state solution, which envisions a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

“In the face of the growing horror in the Middle East, we are acting to keep alive the possibility of peace and a two-state solution,” Keir Starmer, the UK prime minister, said in a statement. “That means a safe and secure Israel alongside a viable Palestinian state. At the moment, we have neither.”

While diplomatically the recognition of Palestine is a major step forward, on a practical level, it does little to bring the possibility of statehood any closer.

Israel has only increased settlement construction in the occupied West Bank throughout its war on Gaza and responded to the recognition of Palestine at the United Nations General Assembly this week by doubling down on its commitment to never allow a Palestinian state.

So does recognition bring Palestine any closer to statehood, and what does a territory need to be considered a state? Let’s take a closer look.

What does it take to be a state?

There is no single definition of a state, but international law widely cites the Montevideo Convention of 1933. The UN has previously referenced the Montevideo Convention when discussing Palestinian statehood.

The convention does not require a state to be recognised by others. Instead, it specifies that a territory must have defined borders, a government, the capacity to enter into relations with other states and a permanent population.

So could Palestine be a state?

While many of the states that recognise Palestine are vague about its exact borders, most envisage lines close to those before Israel’s 1967 war, including Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Israel has occupied Palestinian territory since 1967 despite that being illegal under international law.

The Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinians in the 1990s were supposed to start the process leading to the formation of a Palestinian state and created the Palestinian Authority (PA).

The PA engages in foreign relations, maintaining diplomatic ties with numerous countries and operating various diplomatic missions, including embassies, representative offices and delegations

And in terms of its permanent population, millions of Palestinians live in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem and have done so for generations despite decades of Israeli policies.

However, the degree to which Israel allows the PA to operate as an independent state is disputed. While the PA exercises some governmental functions, international bodies have questioned its full capacity to govern.

For example, the UN Secretariat in 2011 and the International Criminal Court in 2020 noted that despite meeting all the other conditions for statehood set out in the Montevideo Convention, Israel’s control over the PA’s borders, movement within the territory – where Israel maintains a heavy security presence – resources and security operations undermine the PA’s ability to govern.

So, why isn’t Palestine a state?

Because international law can go only so far.

Since establishing Kfar Etzion, its first settlement in the West Bank after the 1967 war, Israel has created more than 160 settlements across the Palestinian territory and occupied East Jerusalem, housing about 700,000 Israelis. These settlements are illegal under international law.

During its war on Gaza, settlement construction has surged. Israel’s latest plan to build about 3,400 new homes would bisect the West Bank while linking thousands of existing settlements by roads for Israeli use only, making any future Palestinian state almost impossible.

In addition, Israel has constructed industrial developments, such as the Barkan Industrial Park, in occupied territory.

Israeli and international firms are encouraged to locate themselves in the industrial parks, receiving government subsidies, low rents, favourable tax rates and access to cheap Palestinian labour in return for supporting the settlements’ economies.

Among them, according to Amnesty International, are international companies such as Airbnb, Expedia and JCB.

How likely is Israel to give up its settlements?

Very unlikely.

Many settlers and their supporters in the Israeli government see their presence in Palestinian territory as ordained by Jewish scriptures.

According to them, in addition to settling Gaza, they hold a “divine mandate” to reclaim the West Bank, or Judea and Samaria as they refer to it, and even to potentially expand Israel’s frontiers to form “Greater Israel”, a territory that includes parts of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt.

Settlers themselves are being increasingly aggressive in seizing Palestinian land, facing little pushback from the Israeli state, and their agenda is openly supported by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party.

Many settler leaders are in government, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

But what about international law?

Israel, with the absolute backing of the United States, has shown little regard for international law from the first ejection of 750,000 Palestinians in 1948 to the present.

In fact, rather than recognise a Palestinian state as others have done, the Israeli Knesset voted in July in defiance of international law and approved a motion to annex the West Bank, which constitutes much of one.