Unkindness to Strangers:

USA Russophobes Trap, Harass, Demonize, Solitary Confine, Expel

Maria Butina sits for post-USA-prison interview (excerpts)

“… Today…, if you are Russian and you are in the US, there is reason to be worried. I am living proof.”

U.S. Officials’, Media

Slander, False (or Miscarriage Of) Justice, Other Cruelties

F

alse image, False allegations

Mainstream media along with U.S. Attorney General’s office painted a picture of her in a familiar movie theme and image (later issued apology) of “spies who are ready to use sex for promotions, new contacts and a chance to reach high-profile US officials”

Maria Butina Responds

They should be embarrassed. The US positions itself as a country that protects women’s rights. They should be ashamed of their behavior. They just made the allegations based on my looks. I have a great family. I am proud of it. Both of my grandmothers are teachers. We share the same name. I have nothing to do with these sex stories. What about my life? How do I live on? Yes, they apologized.

But what about me now?

I was extremely surprised and saddened that the judge did not do anything about it. The only statement by the judge was, ‘It took me five minutes to realize that the communications you have submitted as proof are messages between friends’ – back in Russia. It had nothing to do with the US.

It was completely absurd.

I thought she would defend me, defend my honor and my dignity, because she was also a woman.

They could have accused me of being anybody – a foreign agent or whatever… but those allegations …

As if they didn’t know they were lying.

They knew it. They saw the messages. They realized it was a deliberate lie to keep me detained without any chance of bail.

What do I do now with my reputation?

F

alse espionage stories

Maria Butina Responds

I was never charged with espionage; that was simply speculation.

The media blew it all out of proportion in their stories, perhaps because of how I looked and some fantasy they made up.

Maybe they’ve seen too many Hollywood movies and thought this is how a spy should look. I don’t know, maybe they were just too thick.

A

rrest

Maria Butina Responds

I opened it [the door] to see some 12 FBI agents in full gear, with assault rifles. They told me to step out from the apartment and handcuffed me, asking whether I had anything I could use to hurt them. What? A copybook maybe? That’s how I was arrested….

…After my home was searched, I didn’t change any passwords on my computer, didn’t delete any files. That’s because, again, I had done nothing wrong.

I handed over all the documents voluntarily.

So, I really don’t know why they needed to arrest me. If it was just because I didn’t register, then they could have simply fined me for that and that’s it. Why such cruelty, for what?

S

olitary confinement

Maria Butina Responds

… It is “not standard procedure.

I don’t know why they had to be so cruel. I tend to think – this is just conjecture – that maybe they were trying to break my will or something like that, learn some secrets. But I didn’t have any secrets.

I think that when we started those briefings, as they call them, with the prosecutors, they understood everything after the first or second talks.

They had all my computers, which they still do, and all of my papers. I hadn’t deleted anything, and they searched through everything.

There was nothing there. But they couldn’t admit there was nothing. They had to justify why the US tax payers paid for this show. So they did.

“

Plea bargain” and “guilty” plea—WHY?

 Maria Butina Responds: I saw with my own eyes that there is no justice in the US.

More than 90 percent of defendants plead guilty to avoid a jury, because they know they will be convicted. What kind of justice are we talking about?

…Imagine you are in a foreign country, away from your parents… you have no contact with your family. You are locked up in solitary confinement. It’s very cold and you sit on the floor. You might be facing a 15-year sentence. I thought about how old I was going to be and whether my parents were going to be alive when that day came.

And then you find out, that according to statistics, in the US about 98% of defendants who face a jury get convicted.

So the chance of you losing is, well, quite high.

Besides, who would have been judging me? I would have faced a jury in Washington – the people who watch CNN, the people who have already been fed this narrative, and with those people, it wouldn’t have mattered what I was being accused of.

I would have been on trial for being Russian. I would have been sentenced to 15 years. So I believe I made the only right decision. There was no other way.

Reflection, Conditions, Conclusions

U

.S. Russia Phobia and Domestic Power Plays

Maria Butina

I think that what happened to me, and how Russia is generally depicted in the US, has really nothing to do with Russia per se. They just picked a scapegoat.

Especially now with all those petty games the Republicans and Democrats are playing for power.

The establishment has nothing to do with people or with democracy, the politicians are just fighting for power and that’s why they need a foreign threat, an enemy. Who could make an ideal enemy? So, they picked Russia and now Russia is blamed for everything, even though there are no grounds for any of the accusations.

And then they thought, let’s take some student – like myself – and put her behind bars, and say she is responsible for everything.

That is just absurd.

If I were a US national, I would be offended to hear something like that, that my own government treats me like that. Do they think I really don’t understand anything? That I cannot choose a candidate on my own, and I need Russian interference to help me make a choice? It’s just ridiculous.

… Today…, if you are Russian and you are in the US, there is reason to be worried. And I am living proof.

S

tudying abroad, political activism

United States-Russian relations

Peace

Maria Butina

…These two things do not contradict each other. …. When you come to study international relations, it’s only natural to do something practical in this area too.

I always had a lot of respect for the US, and I still have. And I also love my home country dearly. So, I thought it only reasonable to do something for the sake of friendship between the two countries, to try to improve relations and engage in civic diplomacy.

… I still want to do that. There are good and bad people, it’s the same everywhere.

I believe that the American people should really start paying attention to what is happening in their country.There are good people there; I know this, so I think that good relations between Russia and the US will eventually be built on the foundation of friendship between people, between students – thanks to student exchange programs and religious affinity, too.

That’s exactly what I was basically doing, building bridges between the countries though shared interests in gun rights, and I thought that everything would be OK. Unfortunately, the US authorities had been busy disrupting such activities, probably they don’t want peace.

B

eginning, Ending

Maria Butina 

 I wanted to see this American dream…; I was like a moth to a flame, attracted to all these great things. And unfortunately, now I don’t know the answer – where is life great for people? It seems to me America is not the answer.…

Until yesterday I was behind bars [in America]. Today [October, 26] was my first sunrise in a free world.

R

ussian national Mariia Valeryevna Butina (transliterated as Maria Butina or Mariya Butina) born November 10, 1988 (Barnaul, Altai Krai, USSR), a graduate of Altai State University (a coeducational and public research university in Barnaul, Russia) and the American University (a private research university in Washington, D.C.), was sentenced by a federal judge (April 26, 2019) “to 18 months in prison.” After subjecting her to various forms of mistreatment and imprisoning her for “more than 15 months” in the Tallahassee Federal Correctional Institution (where she suffered more mistreatment), U.S. authorities on October 25, 2019, released Maria Butina from prison and expelled her to her homeland.

Worth repeating

“the American people should really start

paying attention to what is happening in their country.”

Sources

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ull interview transcript worth reading, video worth hearing

RT [RT video link and image] “‘My hair color was proof of guilt’: Maria Butina talks about her arrest, the NRA, and Senate testimony” (FULL INTERVIEW with RT’s Dmitry Leontiev) October 27, 2019: “Accused of spying and jailed in the US, Russian student and gun rights activist Maria Butina has told RT about her ordeal, from staring down a dozen armed FBI agents at her door to how Hollywood clichés served as proof of guilt.” She was “arrested in July 2018 (and) spent eight months in custody, most of it in solitary confinement, before eventually pleading guilty in December.” The US media told “juicy stories about her that later proved false.”

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Butina

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_University

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altai_State_University

Russo phobe: Anti-Russian sentiment (or Russophobia): “a fear and/or dislike for Russia, Russians and/or Russian culture.

A variety of mass culture clichés about Russia and Russians exist. Many of these stereotypes were originally developed in the Western world during the Cold War and were primarily used as elements of political war against the Soviet Union.

Some of these prejudices are still observed in the discussions of the relations with Russia.

In modern popular culture, negative representation of Russia and Russians is also often described as functional because the use of such stereotypes can be used to frame reality such as “creating an image of an ‘enemy’”; or for purported reasons of counterweight, proffering certain excuses or an explanations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Russian_sentiment

Further Notes on U.S. imprisoning of foreign nationals

Press TV October 18, 2019

Iranian scientist Masoud Soleimani was travelling to the United States last year on “a visa issued upon an invitation by the Minnesota-based medical center Mayo Clinic to lead a research program on the treatment of stroke patients” when he was detained by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Since that time he has languished in prison, his mother has died; and he is “reportedly suffering from several health problems which have been aggravated during his incarceration.” [Sounds like part of another pattern repeated by U.S. personnel and “allies” against selected foreign nationals] Press TV reporting October 18, 2019: “US detention of Iranian scientist ‘very disturbing’” https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/10/18/608952/Iran-US-politics-sceince-Masoud-Soleimani

FARS News Agency October 15, 2019

“Iranian Scientist Kept in US Jail without Trial for over 1 Year: TEHRAN (FNA)- Over one year has passed since the FBI jailed renowned Iranian stem cell scientist Professor Massoud Soleimani in a US prison but no trial has yet been held for him.”

“Almost 50 Iranian nationals are currently imprisoned in the United States under various pretexts, mainly bypassing the US sanctions. Even American citizens working for Iranian entities are not immune from US government’s hostile policies.

“Back in January, the FBI took Muslim journalist Marzieh Hashemi, who works for Iran’s English-language Press TV television, from St. Louis Lambert International Airport to a detention center in Washington DC without placing any charges against her, forcing her to eat pork and remove her Islamic hijab.”

Soleimani has been imprisoned in the US without trial since October 07, 2018. Last October, Soleimani, a professor and biomedical researcher at the Tarbiat Modares University (TMU) in Tehran, was arrested by the FBI upon his arrival in the US. According to his Atlanta attorney, Leonard Franco, he has since been held behind bars in a jail in Atlanta without bond.

https://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13980723000332

Wikipedia

Category: Extrajudicial prisoners of the United States by nationality

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Extrajudicial_prisoners_of_the_United_States_by_nationality

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Russian_extrajudicial_prisoners_of_the_United_States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Iranian_extrajudicial_prisoners_of_the_United_States

“The United States Department of Defense acknowledges holding 3 Iranian captives in Guantanamo.  A total of 779 captives have been held in extrajudicial detention in the Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba since the camps opened on January 11, 2002.

“The camp population peaked in 2004 at approximately 660.” Since the United States Supreme Court’s ruling in Rasul v. Bush, 19 “new captives… have been transferred” to Guantanamo Bay. As of July 2012, the camp reportedly had a population of “approximately 168.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_detainees_at_Guantanamo_Bay

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