Index/Dos'e na Tsenzuru. Issue # 27

In the issue of the magazine under the title The Lords of torments we discuss the problem of the arbitrariness of law-enforcement bodies and absence of the public control over them. We wished to show that in Russian society law-enforcement institutes received unwarrantable power upon the citizens which they use it without any consideration of norms of law and ethics. In fact, the law-enforcement structures have created their own patterns of interaction of the power and society which can be expressed briefly: we defend you, so bear our arbitrariness. Besides, these unlawful patterns gain ground as general models of attitude of the authoriries to the simple citizens of the country. Our authors also reflect on the possibility of the civic contol upon activities of the law-enforcement bodies.As the first material of the issue (the heading Solo for a Voice) we published an article of the young philosopher Oleg Aronson Law-enforcement Bodies where, we guess, is conceptually expressed the position of the Editorial.The main part of the issue begins with an essay of the well-known author Oleg Pavlov Laws and Customs. The author reflects on the reasons why in today Russia the absence of civic rights becomes the necessary condition of the law and order in the state. The sociologists Boris Dubin and Natalia Zorkaya in their analytical material give data about opinions on crime, death penalty and justice in Russia.Vladimir Kuzemko writes on the violence regulary used in Russian militia (Tortures in militia); the well-known judge and now barrister Serguey Pashin in the article Autioritarism and civic control analyzes possibilities of effective civic control on the law-enforcement sructures under real today conditions and comes to enough pessimistic conclusions.

Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan in the material Special control critically analyze the today mechanisms of Parliament and financial control as well as activities of the so called Pubic Councils attached to executive bodies and the control on the crime investigations.

The well-known journalist Gueorgui Ramazashvili in the article How to discredit the Enemy shows the repressive and calumnious methods used to difame Mikhgail Hodorkovsky and trace their history in the recent Soviet past.

Naum Nim in the essay No shame when all togather gives its own understanding of the today situation in Russia: not only the authorities become for people a kind of black box that can be nor controlled neither understood, but the people itself becomes mystic and even threatening power for authorities

The journalist Boris Timoshenko who works in Glasnost Defence Foundation in the article The art of ruling writes on the consequences of the Law On the Counteraction to the extremist activities for Russian mass media.

Grigori Pasko, a well-known journalist-ecologist, in the article Schizophrenia, or God bless you! considers the today situation in Russian society as the dictatorship of the lawlessness.

In the article The Conversation of the Bookseller and the Authorities Boris Kupriyanov tells of the menace of the criminal prosecution for one of the most popular in Moscow shop of humanities Falanster, charged with distribution of pornjgraphia.

Inr the material Old Habits are Stronger than the new ones Naum Nim reflects on the possible escale of the use of the novels in Criminal Code on the extremist activities connecting them with the Soviet practice of revelation of enemies of the people.

In the part History we publish materials by Rostislav Gorchakov (the story of the epoque of slave-trade in England echoes in today Russian life (The Long Voyage of the Brig) as well as the story on the personal honesty of the German judge under hitlerism (The Optimism of the Judje Morgen). Valeri Kadjaya remembers us the hard time of the thirties as well as Lev Fedorov who in the article The Unforgetable 1937 and Ecology tells about burial places of the chemical arms in Moscow and today situation with them. Alexandr Sidorov tells the story of the general Ivan Bessonov who tried to rise the prisoners of GULAG to struggle against the Soviet power on the side of the fascist Germany.

In the traditional part of the magazine Here I stand! we publish the works of Natalia Estemirova, journalist and Human Rights activist, who became the first Fnnf Politkovskaya Prize wiiner in 2007.

Further we publish materials by Olga Suhareva (Militia versus Oksana Osadchaya) and by Serguei Yadykin (The Common Case) where using the real examples from Russian life, they tell about the work of the Human Rights organization The Public verdict/

The part The bounderies of misunderstanding begins with the essay by Aleksei Rafiev Farewell, the Third Rome! on the state of the actual culture in Russia< further Elena Zaitseva puts the question on the freedom of the actual culture (The Terrytory of the Freedom).

Here we publish also the review by Milosh Wek of the books by Wolfgang Sofsky and Peter Schaar on the violation of privacy and the review by Alexei Mokrousov on the book by Ditmar Neutatz Moscow Metro. From the First Plans to the Great Construction of Stalinism (1897--1935).