Re: Dmitry Bogatov arrested in Moscow

[Jonas Meurer <jonas@freesources.org>]

Hi list,

Am 12.04.2017 um 15:45 schrieb Steven Chamberlain:
> Would it be uncontrovercial to merely announce the basic facts as we
> know them?
> 
>     The Debian Project is concerned to hear that one of our members,
>     (person, notability) has been (details of incident).
> 
>     We await further details of the case against him, but hope that
>     (something about fair trial and due process).
> 
>     In the meantime, the Debian Project has taken measures to secure its
>     systems (revocation of keys / credentials in his possession).
> 
> Something merely enough to create more interest in the case, and to let
> other parties who are better able (journalists, local activists) to dig
> further into it.

I wanted to suggest something along these lines. And I believe that this
is the least we as the Debian project could do. To help Dmitry.

This kind of statement doesn't imply agreement with the concrete actions
that Dmitry did.

I think that we even could go one step beyond and express general
solidarity with people who develop and provide technical tools for
circumventing censorship and (state, national) repression.

> If this is politically motivated, the best outcome I can imagine is that
> the case gains attenton, and the prosecution looks for some excuse to
> drop the case against him.  And if it is not, we should at least hear
> more details this way.

So true. But as Jérémy already mentionaed, before possibly going public
we should get in contact with his lawyer or a local legal support team
who know more details about the case. We should not do any statement
without evidence that Dmitry would appreciate it.

Apart from a public statement I would like to pick up Jérémys suggestion
to support Dmitry financially (if he wants us to do so). I fully agree
that the two most important areas of community support in case of being
arrested are public statements of solidarity and financial support. In
the worst case, arrested people even refrain from a possibly lenghty
defence strategy just because they fear the financial aftermaths.

And another good thing about financial support is that we can do it
without a public statement. We don't need to hide it, but we don't need
to shout it out into the world either.

In any case, thanks a lot to Mikhail and Dmitry Shachnev who offered to
try to make contacts to Dmitrys lawyer and/or support crew. I think it
would be great if we could get a statement from them first whether any
support/statement of solidarity is desired.

Cheers,
 jonas

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