It was late one afternoon in January when a squad of plainclothes police officers arrived at the headquarters of a prominent environmental group. They brushed past the staff with barely a word and instead set upon the computers before carting them away. Taken were files that chronicled a generation’s worth of efforts to protect the Siberian wilderness.
The group, Baikal Environmental Wave, was organizing protests against a decision by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to reopen a paper factory that had long polluted nearby Lake Baikal, a natural wonder that by some estimates holds 20 percent of the world’s freshwater.
Instead, the group fell victim to one of the authorities’ newest tactics for quelling dissent: confiscating computers under the pretext of searching for pirated Microsoft software.
Across Russia, the security services have carried out dozens of similar raids against outspoken advocacy groups or opposition newspapers in recent years. Security officials say the inquiries reflect their concern about software piracy, which is rampant in Russia. Yet they rarely if ever carry out raids against advocacy groups or news organizations that back the government.
As the ploy grows common, the authorities are receiving pivotal assistance from an unexpected partner: Microsoft itself. In numerous politically tinged inquiries across Russia, lawyers retained by Microsoft have staunchly backed the police.
Interviews and a review of law-enforcement documents show that in recent cases, Microsoft lawyers made statements describing the company as a victim and arguing that criminal charges should be pursued. The lawyers rebuffed pleas by accused journalists and advocacy groups — including Baikal Wave — to refrain from working with the authorities.
Baikal Wave, in fact, said it had purchased and installed legal Microsoft software specifically to deny the authorities an excuse to raid them. The group later asked Microsoft for help in fending off the police. “Microsoft did not want to help us, which would have been the right thing to do,” said Marina Rikhvanova, a Baikal Wave co-chairwoman and one of Russia’s best-known environmentalists.
Microsoft executives in Moscow and at the company’s headquarters in Redmond, Wash., said that they did not initiate the inquiries and that they took part in them only because they were required to do so under Russian law.
Microsoft, like many U.S. technology giants doing business in authoritarian countries, is often faced with ethical choices over government directives to help suppress dissent. Kevin Kutz, director of public affairs for Microsoft, said the company would ensure that its lawyers had “more clearly defined responsibilities and accountabilities.”
Source:http://www.tampabay.com/news/russia-stifles-dissent-using-pretext-of-microsoft-software-piracy/1121084
