Soviet terror recalled as Russian crackdown on dissent intensifies
LONDON — Russians commemorated the victims of Soviet state terror on Sunday, while the Russian government continues its crackdown on dissent in the country.
The “Returning of the Names” event was organized by the Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights group Memorial.
The commemoration has traditionally been held in Moscow on Oct. 29 — the eve of Russia’s Remembrance Day for the Victims of Political Repression — at the Solovetsky Stone memorial to victims of Soviet-era repression, and centers on the reading out of names of individuals killed during Joseph Stalin’s Great Terror of the late 1930s.
Since 2020, Moscow authorities have refused to grant a permit for the demonstration. This is allegedly owing to the “epidemiological situation” and a ban on holding public events, though supporters of Memorial believe the refusal is politically motivated.
Memorial itself was ordered to close by the Moscow authorities in November 2021. Although it was shut down as a legal entity in Russia, the group still operates in other countries and has continued some of its human rights activities in Russia.
Instead of a demonstration, on Sunday Muscovites and several Western ambassadors laid flowers at the Solovetsky Stone. The subdued event took place under the watchful eyes of police.
Memorial also organized a live broadcast of the reading of the victims’ names, from Moscow and other Russian cities, as well as from abroad.
The “Returning of the Names” event comes as Russian prosecutors seek a three-year prison sentence for human rights campaigner and Memorial co-chair Oleg Orlov.
Orlov was fined around $1,500 earlier this month and convicted of publicly “discrediting” the Russian military after a Facebook post in which he denounced the invasion of Ukraine, the latest step in a relentless crackdown on activists, independent journalists and opposition figures.
Memorial said on Friday that state prosecutors had appealed the sentence, calling it “excessively lenient.”
“It’s obvious that Orlov needs isolation from society for his correction,” Memorial quoted the prosecutor as saying.
UAW strike expands: The United Auto Workers union has widened its strike against General Motors, the lone holdout among the three Detroit automakers, after reaching a tentative contract agreement with Jeep maker Stellantis.
The escalated walkout began Saturday evening at a Spring Hill, Tennessee plant, GM’s largest in North America, just hours after the Stellantis deal was reached. Its nearly 4,000 workers join about 14,000 already striking at GM factories in Texas, Michigan and Missouri.
The UAW did not immediately explain what prompted the new action after 44 days of targeted strikes. The added pressure on GM is substantial as Spring Hill makes engines for vehicles assembled in a total of nine plants. Vehicles assembled at Spring Hill include the electric Cadillac Lyriq, GMC Acadia and Cadillac crossover SUVs.
“The Spring Hill walkout affects so much of GM’s production that the company is likely to settle
quickly or close down most production,” said Erik Gordon, a University of Michigan business professor. The union wants to wrap negotiations with all three automakers so “Ford and Stellantis workers don’t vote down (their) tentative agreements because they want to see what GM workers get.”
Stellantis’ deal mirrors one reached last week with Ford, the UAW said.
Hurricane Otis: At least 43 people died when Category 5 Hurricane Otis slammed into Mexico’s southern Pacific coast, the governor of hard-hit Guerrero said Sunday as the death toll continued to climb.
That increase came after authorities had raised the toll to 39 on Saturday.
Gov. Evelyn Salgado said on X, formerly Twitter, that the number of missing also rose to 36 from 10 a day earlier.
In Acapulco, families began to bury the dead
Sunday and continued the search for essentials while government workers and volunteers cleared streets clogged with muck and debris from the powerful hurricane.
More resources were arriving as searchers recovered more bodies from Acapulco’s harbor and from beneath fallen trees and other storm debris.
Bangladesh political arrest:
Authorities in Bangladesh arrested a key opposition figure from the Bangladesh Nationalist Party on Sunday and sent him to prison after hours of detention. The party had called for a nationwide strike after violent clashes with security forces a day earlier.
Media reports said at least three civilians died in the violence, which included an arson attack in the nation’s capital, Dhaka, on Sunday. Dozens of others were injured during the strike.
At least one police officer was killed and scores were
injured Saturday when a massive rally by tens of thousands of opposition activists turned violent, police said.
The opposition is demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and the transfer of power to a non-partisan caretaker government to oversee general elections next year.
Almost nine hours after detention, police late Sunday arrested Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, the secretary general of the Nationalist Party led by former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, Hasina’s main rival, said Faruk Hossain, deputy commissioner of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police in charge of media.
SKorea disaster recalled:
Bereaved relatives of victims of last year’s devastating Halloween crush in Seoul and their supporters demanded an independent investigation of the disaster as they marked the anniversary Sunday with a massive
memorial service.
The crush, one of the biggest peacetime disasters in South Korea, killed 159 people, most of them in their 20s and 30s who had gathered in Itaewon, a popular nightlife district in Seoul, for Halloween celebrations.
Commemorating the anniversary, the families visited the Itaewon area, laid flowers and offered condolences at an alley where the crush happened. Some wept near a wall where hosts of post-it notes with condolence messages were plastered.
Brazil plane crash: Twelve people aboard a small aircraft died in a crash Sunday morning in Brazil’s Amazon region.
The plane went down near the main airport in Rio Branco, the capital of Acre state, according to the press office of Gov. Gladson Cameli. Video supposedly of the crash site on social media showed flaming wreckage in the forest.