Human rights activist Oleg Orlov is on trial with references to Star Wars

On Monday, the second hearing on the criminal case of human rights activist Oleg Orlov was held in the Golovinsky District Court of Moscow. The 70-year-old co-founder of Memorial (included in the register of foreign agents and liquidated by the Armed Forces; in 2022 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize) is accused of “re-discrediting” the army for publishing an article critical of the SVO and the Russian authorities. At the meeting, the expert Natalya Kryukova was interrogated, who, by order of the investigation, examined the text of Mr. Orlov. As a result, the judge, prosecutor, and lawyer argued about the Jedi.

The meeting began with the interrogation of the witness for the prosecution – the executive director of the movement “Veterans of Russia” Vadim Mironenko. He proudly admitted that it was the “Veterans” who several years ago demanded that a case be opened against the “Memorial” for the rehabilitation of Nazism. In court, Mr. Mironenko answered the questions of the defense, but behaved like an accuser – he constantly stated about the “anti-state” and “anti-constitutional” activities of Oleg Orlov: “Does Orlov deeply understand the meaning of the term“ fascism ”, which he uses? It is populist in nature and aimed at discrediting the existing system.” In court, the testimony of Vadim Mironenko during the investigation was read out – there he stated, for example, that Memorial was created as an “information weapon” against the USSR. Here public defender Dmitry Muratov could not stand it and recalled that Memorial was registered on April 7, 1991 – just a few months before the collapse of the Union. But it turned out that the representative of the “Veterans of Russia” knows the history of his political opponents quite well: “In 1987, there was an attempt at the first founding congress.”

The second witness, the Veterans of Russia coordinator Sergei Bokhonko, came to court in camouflage (but without insignia). He was asked questions about the content of the article by Oleg Orlov, which became the reason for the criminal case, but Mr. Bokhonko could not give a clear answer and reached for a hint on the phone. “Everything is in my testimony,” he explained. Mr. Muratov asked why the testimony of both witnesses coincided almost verbatim – “by 97%” – but Sergei Bokhonko did not have a version of why this happened.

Most of the meeting was taken up by the interrogation of Natalya Kryukova, one of the authors of the linguistic expertise of Oleg Orlov’s article. Prosecutor Svetlana Kildisheva asked what methods the experts used when analyzing the article. Ms. Kryukova replied that they used the “narrowed” psychological-linguistic method of “Kukushkina and others.” Lawyer Katerina Tertukhina said that she did not find in the examination a single reference to the work of Professor Olga Kukushkina, but she did notice the mention of Star Wars. This caused laughter in the hall.

The fact is that in his article, Oleg Orlov talked about the “dark forces”, which, in his opinion, “dreamed of a complete revenge for the collapse of the Soviet empire” and which “celebrated victory over the past months.” It was this quote, as it turned out, that the expert assessed through the prism of the films of George Lucas.

And lawyer Katerina Tertukhina considered such a reference an unacceptable source. “You have a link to Star Wars. Is this a book, a comic or what? the protector asked, trying to keep a straight face. “I’m referring to the Star Wars series, it’s about this … DJ,” Ms. Kryukova was embarrassed. “Jedai,” prompted Dmitry Muratov. “A DJ is a little different.” “This whole terminology – the light and the dark side – it comes from such a Ukrainian figure…” the expert began to explain confusedly. “But I didn’t want to describe it all. Therefore, in fact … Because there (in Star Wars.— “b”) is also a light and dark side, like a kind of marker … “” Everything is clear to me with Star Wars, “the judge came to the rescue. “I’m talking about sources. There can be a lot of Star Wars – there are comics, TV shows, films, ”the lawyer clarified her claims. “The light side and the Jedi are all in the same context of the Force,” the judge demonstrated her knowledge of world cinema. The prosecutor supported her: “And the dark side of the Force. Everyone knows this.”

Dmitry Muratov scolded the expert Kryukov for inaccurate work: “We gave your text to a group of professors, linguists. So, there are more than 30 spelling and punctuation errors. Should a linguist write correctly in Russian? Ms. Kryukova refused to answer this question, but noted that the defense “means enough money” for such checks.

The next meeting will be held on July 21st. It is planned to interrogate the second expert and defense witnesses.

Emilia Gabdullina