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celebratedrecluse wrote

the second person, Michelle, doesn't have a last name printed, and the allegation is that they were sharing hentai allegedly depicting minors, which is disturbing if true-- I'm against the criminal justice system and the state, but I also think it is reprehensible when this content is popularized because of the normalization of child abuse inherent to it. It's hard to say what is really going on in this part of the story, because nothing is verifiable.

76crimes appears to be a reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_of_%2776_(sentiment) which is pretty weird and american given that it's supposed to be an international team documenting the fight for LGBTQI rights in 70 something countries. This is another red flag that makes me question the journalistic quality of this source, there are plenty of publications online which are created for propaganda purposes by some government or interested party. To be honest, I'm getting real Nayirah vibes from the part about Michelle, but I could be totally off base too, it's just so hard for me to tell these days.

That said, assuming all this is legit it is upsetting to see the state legitimize itself by stigmatizing queer people in public show trials. The Russian Federation has for example some of the worst domestic violence and transphobic/homophobic violence statistics of any country, and the reactionary government seems to encourage this as a way to cement its macropolitical hegemony rather than even attempt to address it as the human rights crisis it is.

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n_n OP wrote (edited )

That's a valid concern. I don't know if the next information clarify anything but I think that is worth of point out:

  • Its About section states: "Colin Stewart is a 40-year journalism veteran living in Southern California. After his retirement from paid newspaper work in 2012, he launched the Erasing 76 Crimes blog and helped with the Spirit of 76 campaign that assembled a multi-national team of 26 LGBTI rights activists to advocate for change during the International AIDS Conference in Washington, D.C., in July 2012."

  • About Michelle: "Prior to the trial, which took place in November, the investigators ordered an “expert” evaluation of the images from the Center for Socio-Cultural Expertise, an organization known to provide damning conclusions in politically motivated criminal cases, including the case of Pussy Riot, the child pornography case against human rights defender Yury Dmitriev, and dozens of extremism cases against Russia’s Jehovah’s Witnesses. Their evaluation of the drawings concluded that they included characters younger than 14 years of age. Authorities took Michelle into custody from the courtroom, immediately after the judge handed down the verdict. She remains in a solitary cell in jail pending an appeal hearing in her case."

The reports are copy and paste of the two articles by Human Right Watch:

Here is another article about Michelle by CBS News.

I wouldn't stick my neck out for that blog tho. I tend to be wary of all liberal sites.

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celebratedrecluse wrote

Yeah, definitely. Thanks for further information, I am skeptical of HRW but they sometimes do good work as well, will read and form my conclusions further

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