By Citizen M | Published: May 26, 2011

TODAY: Activist’s wife facing drugs charges; independent newspaper shut down after supporting opposition candidate; Moscow says no to gay rights parade; United Russia remove posters; Duma intern fired for revealing session secrets; Khodorkovsky ruling responses; Russia moves closer to OECD; cultural cold war; Cameron to visit Moscow; Putin cult.
Is the drug-dealing charge against activist Taisia Osipova a government frame
designed to punish her husband, a member of the Other Russia party? She says a raid on her house was attended by an anti-extremism officer. Independent weekly newspaper Krestyanin has been
shut down ‘
for allowing its printing press to print campaign flyers‘ for a Communist Party mayoral candidate. Moscow has
reconfirmed its decision to reject gay rights activsts’ application to hold a gay pride parade. The law says that a deceased person’s image can only be used with the permission of their relatives: but
that didn’t stop United Russia from launching a poster campaign using the faces of St Petersburg’s historic residents without permission. ‘
They [United Russia] have long been living in a dream world.‘ Soviet-era activist Aleksei Manannikov has been sentenced to
48 hours’ detention for missing a police appointment. A
Duma intern has been fired for revealing that deputies were playing cards and surfing the internet during sessions.
PHOTO: Svetlana Frolova, who leads a cult which venerates Vladimir Putin, leads a service at her sanctuary at Bolshaya Yelena, a village near central Russia’s city of Nizhny Novgorod May 15, 2011. (REUTERS/Natalia Plankina)