Re: Dmitry Bogatov arrested in Moscow

[Christoph Biedl <debian.axhn@manchmal.in-ulm.de>]

Clint Byrum wrote...

> The only debate is whether or not Debian as an org should do something.

The primary objective should be to get Dmitry out of this mess as soon
as possible. The question is what could be done, and what should be
avoided.

The only people I would take advice from in that matter are, in that
order, his lawyer, and people how have a lot of experience in that
particular field. If they ask to involve the public, it will happen. If
funding is a problem, certainly things could be arranged - although
appearently Russia took action to make financial aid from abroad
difficult to impossible.

> Perhaps we can, as individuals, lend our voices there, rather than in
> this private list.

Creating politic noise, by the press, by individuals, by organisations
like Debian, puts the authorities under pressure. In some parts of the
world this might help. For Russia and in that case, my gut feeling tells
me that was quite a bad move. I might be wrong here, still please wait
with irreversible action until we receive a word from the lawyer.

Just two more thoughts:

It seems Dmitry uses an @gnu.org e-mail address. Depending on his
involvement in the GNU project it might be an idea to coordinate with
them on how to react to this situation. I bet there are enough GNU folks
around here.

And, stating the hopefully obvious: It was naïve to assume some Russian
authorities do *not* have access to this list's archive. Especially
right now, they might be even actively monitoring it.

    Christoph