When Putin’s goons come knocking in the night

The British Council, a nearly $1 billion quasi-independent organization that promotes British culture overseas and works on foreign development and educational projects around the globe, has been forced to close its offices in the Russian cities of St. Petersburg and Ekaterinburg after its staff members were harassed by Russian internal security service (FSB) officers, sometimes in their homes in the middle of the night. The British Council said in a statement (pdf):

On Tuesday 15 January, the Russian State Security Services (FSB) summoned over 20 Russian staff to attend individual interviews. Late that night 10 members of staff were visited at home by the Russian tax police and called to further interviews yesterday. The interviews had little to do with their work and were clearly aimed at exerting undue pressure on innocent individuals.”

One of the most disturbing trends in Russia is the use of tax inspectors and other bogus investigations to intimidate and harass foreign NGOs and their employees. And now comes news that FSB goons are visiting people’s homes in the middle of the night? This is the kind of cock-eyed nonsense that went on in Nazi-occupied Europe and later in East Berlin and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. One might expect this kind of thing in North Korea or Burma today.

It doesn’t say much for Vladimir Putin’s Russia that the same tactics have resurfaced with so much enthusiasm there in recent years. Kicking George Soros’s group out of Moscow is one thing. But the British Council? The guys who teach English classes to impoverished children and run a lending library for homesick expats? Give me a break.