Tag Archives: Detained

Trump warns Iran over detained Americans: White House

U.S. President Donald Trump reacts as he leaves a Made in America roundtable meeting in the East Room of the White House in Washington, U.S. July 19, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump warned that Iran would face “new and serious consequences” unless all unjustly detained American citizens were released and returned, the White House said in a statement on Friday.

Trump urged Iran to return Robert Levinson, an American former law enforcement officer who disappeared more than 10 years ago in Iran, and demanded that Tehran release businessman Siamak Namazi and his father, Baquer.

The statement capped a week of rhetoric against Tehran. On Tuesday, Washington slapped new economic sanctions against Iran over its ballistic missile program and said Tehran’s “malign activities” in the Middle East undercut any “positive contributions” coming from the 2015 nuclear accord.

Those measures signaled that the Trump administration was seeking to put more pressure on Iran while keeping in place an agreement between Tehran and six world powers to curb its nuclear program in return for lifting international oil and financial sanctions.

Friday’s statement said Trump and his administration were “redoubling efforts” to bring back all Americans unjustly detained abroad.

An Iranian court sentenced 46-year-old Siamak Namazi and his 80-year-old father Baquer Namazi to 10 years in prison each on charges of spying and cooperating with the United States.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps detained Siamak in October 2015 while he was visiting family in Tehran, relatives said.

The IRGC arrested the father, a former Iranian provincial governor and former UNICEF official in February last year, family members said.

Levinson, a former agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and for the Drug Enforcement Administration, disappeared in Iran in 2007 and the U.S. government has a $5 million reward for information leading to his safe return.

An Iranian court sentenced Xiyue Wang, a Chinese-born U.S. citizen graduate student from Princeton University, to 10 years in jail on spying charges, Iran’s judiciary spokesman said on Sunday.

“Iran is responsible for the care and wellbeing of every United States citizen in its custody,” the White House said in the statement.

Separately, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson met with Oman’s foreign affairs minister, Yusuf bin Alawi on Friday.

Washington has in the past sought Oman’s mediation to help in securing the release of detained Americans abroad. Last year American prisoners held captive by Yemen Houthi rebels were released after Omani mediation.

Oman also paid bail that ultimately helped in the release of three American hikers in 2010 and 2011.

(Reporting by Yara Bayoumy; Editing by James Dalgleish, Toni Reinhold)

Exclusive: At least 123 Venezuelan soldiers detained since protests – documents

Soldiers march during a military parade to celebrate the 206th anniversary of Venezuela's independence in Caracas, Venezuela, July 5, 2017. REUTERS/Marco Bello

By Girish Gupta

CARACAS (Reuters) – At least 123 members of Venezuela’s armed forces have been detained since anti-government unrest began in April on charges ranging from treason and rebellion to theft and desertion, according to military documents seen by Reuters.

The list of detainees, which includes officers as well as servicemen from the lower ranks of the army, navy, air force and National Guard, provided the clearest picture to date of dissatisfaction and dissent within Venezuela’s roughly 150,000-strong military.

The records, detailing prisoners held in three Venezuelan jails, showed that since April nearly 30 members of the military have been detained for deserting or abandoning their post and almost 40 for rebellion, treason, or insubordination.

Most of the remaining military prisoners were charged with theft.

Millions of Venezuelans are suffering from food shortages and soaring inflation caused by a severe economic crisis. Even within the armed forces, salaries start at the minimum wage, equivalent to around $12.50 a month at the black market exchange rate, and privately some members admit to being poorly paid and underfed.

Since the opposition started its protests more than three months ago, a handful of security officials have gone public with their discontent. Last week, rogue policeman and action movie star Oscar Perez commandeered a helicopter and attacked government buildings, claiming that a faction within the armed forces was opposed to Maduro’s government.

The military documents seen by Reuters, which covered detentions until mid-June, appeared to support opposition leaders’ assertions that anger and dissent among soldiers over economic hardship is more widespread.

“This shows low morale and discontent and, of course, economic necessity,” one former army general said of the detentions, asking not to be named for fear of reprisals.

Venezuela’s military and Information Ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

Venezuelans view the armed forces as the key power broker in their country. Opposition leaders have repeatedly exhorted military leaders to break with socialist President Nicolas Maduro.

Maduro has said that he is the victim of an “armed insurrection” by U.S.-backed opponents seeking to gain control of the OPEC country’s oil wealth. He has said that the top military brass have been standing by him.

The National Guard has been at the forefront of policing protests across the country. It uses tear gas, water cannons, and rubber bullets against masked youths who in turn hurl stones, Molotov cocktails and excrement at security lines. At least 90 people have been killed since April.

Privately, some National Guard members on the streets have acknowledged being exhausted, impoverished and hungry, though most remain impassive during protests and avoid engaging in conversation with reporters.

“LITTLE RAMBOS”

The documents, which identified detainees by their rank, listed captains, sergeants, lieutenants and regular troops held in three prisons in different parts of Venezuela.

Ninety-one are at Ramo Verde, a hilltop jail near Caracas where opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez is also held.

Another two dozen are at Pica prison in the northeastern city of Maturin and eight are at Santa Ana jail in the western state of Tachira, near the Colombian border.

It was not immediately clear if military prisoners were also being held in other jails.

Three lieutenants fled to Colombia and requested asylum in May, and a man who said he was a Venezuelan naval sergeant appeared in a video published by local media last month expressing his dissent and urging colleagues to disobey “abusive” and “corrupt” superiors.

Maduro has blamed the problems on an “economic war” being waged by the opposition with backing from Washington, a position taken in public by senior military officials.

“Many are seeking … little ‘Rambos’ in the armed forces, but you’re not going to find them,” Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino said in a video published on Monday, alluding to speculation of a military coup.

Perez, who staged the helicopter attack last week against the Interior Ministry and the Supreme Court in Caracas, appeared in an online video on Wednesday vowing to keep up the fight.

“We are fully sure of what we are doing and if we must give up our lives, we will hand them over to the people,” Perez said, sitting in front of a Venezuelan flag and rifle.

(Editing by Alexandra Ulmer, Andrew Cawthorne, Toni Reinhold)

North Korea says U.S. student’s death a ‘mystery to us as well’

FILE PHOTO - Otto Frederick Warmbier (C), a University of Virginia student who was detained in North Korea since early January, is taken to North Korea's top court in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this photo released by Kyodo March 16, 2016. Mandatory credit REUTERS/Kyodo

By Jack Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea said on Friday the death of U.S. university student Otto Warmbier soon after his return home was a mystery and dismissed accusations that he had died because of torture and beating during his captivity as “groundless”.

The North’s foreign ministry spokesman also said in comments carried by the official KCNA agency that Warmbier was “a victim of the policy of strategic patience” of former U.S. President Barack Obama whose government never requested his release.

“The fact that Warmbier died suddenly in less than a week just after his return to the U.S. in his normal state of health indicators is a mystery to us as well,” the spokesman was quoted by KCNA as saying.

Warmbier, 22, was arrested in the reclusive country while visiting as a tourist. He was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for trying to steal an item bearing a propaganda slogan from his hotel, North Korea state media said.

He was brought back to the United States last week in a coma with brain damage, in what doctors described as state of “unresponsive wakefulness”, and died on Monday.

His death heightened the conflict between the North and the United States already aggravated by North Korea’s defiant missile launches and two nuclear tests since early last year as part of its effort to build a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of hitting the U.S. mainland.

U.S. President Donald Trump blamed “the brutality of the North Korean regime” for Warmbier’s death and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who had advocated dialogue with the North, said Pyongyang had a “heavy responsibility” in the events leading up to the American’s death.

The North’s spokesman said such accusations are part of a smear campaign to slander the country that had given “medical treatments and care with all sincerity” to a person who was “clearly a criminal”.

U.S. doctors who had traveled to the North last week to evacuate Warmbier had recognized that the North had “provided him with medical treatment and brought him back alive whose heart was nearly stopped,” the unnamed ministry spokesman said.

“Although Warmbier was a criminal who committed a hostile act against the DPRK, we accepted the repeated requests of the present U.S. administration and, in consideration of his bad health, sent him back home on humanitarian grounds,” the spokesman said.

DPRK is short for the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The exact cause of Warmbier’s death remains unclear. Officials at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, where he was treated after his return from the North, declined to provide details, and his family asked the Hamilton County Coroner on Tuesday not to perform an autopsy.

Thousands of friends and family members gathered at Wyoming High School in suburban Cincinnati on Thursday for a memorial service for Warmbier, who graduated from the school as salutatorian in 2013.

The United States has demanded North Korea release three other U.S. citizens it holds in detention: missionary Kim Dong Chul and academics Tony Kim and Kim Hak Song.

Warmbier was freed after the U.S. State Department’s special envoy on North Korea, Joseph Yun, traveled to Pyongyang and demanded the student’s release on humanitarian grounds, capping a flurry of diplomatic contacts, a U.S. official has said.

The North previously released American detainees it had accused and convicted of crimes against the state on the occasion of high-level visits by U.S. officials.

(Additional reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Mourners in Ohio remember U.S. student held prisoner by North Korea

FILE PHOTO - Otto Frederick Warmbier, a University of Virginia student who has been detained in North Korea since early January, attends a news conference in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this photo released by Kyodo February 29, 2016. Mandatory credit REUTERS/Kyodo/File Photo

By Ginny McCabe

WYOMING, Ohio (Reuters) – Friends and family members will gather in Ohio on Thursday to say goodbye to an American student who died days after being returned to the United States in a coma following 17 months in captivity in North Korea.

Otto Warmbier, 22, was arrested in the reclusive communist country while visiting as a tourist. He was brought back to the United States last week with brain damage, in what doctors described as state of “unresponsive wakefulness,” and died on Monday.

A public memorial will be held on Thursday morning at Wyoming High School, in the Cincinnati suburb of Wyoming. Warmbier will be buried later in the day at a local cemetery.

The exact cause of his death is unclear. Officials at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, where he was treated, declined to provide details, and Warmbier’s family on Tuesday asked that the Hamilton County Coroner not perform an autopsy.

Warmbier’s father, Fred Warmbier, told a news conference last week that his son had flourished while at the high school.

“This is the place where Otto experienced some of the best moments of his young life, and he would be pleased to know that his return to the United States would be acknowledged on these grounds,” he said.

After graduating as class salutatorian in 2013, Warmbier enrolled at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, where he was studying at the school of commerce and was a member of the Theta Chi fraternity. Warmbier was scheduled to graduate this year.

At a memorial service on Tuesday night, students at the university remembered Warmbier as outgoing and energetic.

“Being with Otto made life all the more beautiful,” Alex Vagonis, Warmbier’s girlfriend, said.

Warmbier was traveling in North Korea with a tour group, and was arrested at Pyongyang airport as he was about to leave.

He was sentenced two months later to 15 years of hard labor for trying to steal an item bearing a propaganda slogan from his hotel, North Korea state media said.

Ria Westergaard Pedersen, 33, who was with Warmbier in North Korea, told the Danish broadcaster TV2 that he had been nervous when taking pictures of soldiers, and said she doubted North Korea’s explanation for his arrest.

“We went to buy propaganda posters together, so why in the world would he risk so much to steal a trivial poster? It makes no sense.”

(Wrting and additional reporting by Timothy Mclaughlin in Chicago and Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen in Copenhagen; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

U.S. student held prisoner by North Korea dies days after release

FILE PHOTO - Otto Frederick Warmbier, a University of Virginia student who has been detained in North Korea since early January, attends a news conference in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this photo released by Kyodo February 29, 2016. Mandatory credit REUTERS/Kyodo/File Photo

By Steve Gorman

(Reuters) – An American university student held prisoner in North Korea for 17 months died at a Cincinnati hospital on Monday, just days after he was released from captivity in a coma, his family said.

Otto Warmbier, 22, who was arrested in North Korea while visiting as a tourist, had been described by doctors caring for him last week as having extensive brain damage that left him in a state of “unresponsive wakefulness.”

“Unfortunately, the awful torturous mistreatment our son received at the hands of the North Koreans ensured that no other outcome was possible beyond the sad one we experienced today,” the family said in a statement after Warmbier’s death at 2:20 p.m. EDT (1820 GMT).

His family has said that Warmbier lapsed into a coma in March 2016, shortly after he was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in North Korea.

Physicians at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, where he died, said last Thursday that Warmbier showed no sign of understanding language or awareness of his surroundings, and had made no “purposeful movements or behaviors,” though he was breathing on his own.

There was no immediate word from Warmbier’s family on the cause of his death.

The circumstances of his detention in North Korea and what medical treatment he may have received there remained a mystery, but relatives have said his condition suggested that he had been physically abused by his captors.

The University of Virginia student and Ohio native was arrested, according to North Korean media, for trying to steal an item bearing a propaganda slogan.

North Korea released Warmbier last week and said he was being freed “on humanitarian grounds.” [nL3N1JC1ZB]

The North Korean mission to the United Nations was not available for comment on Monday.

U.S. President Donald Trump issued a statement offering condolences to the Warmbier family and denouncing “the brutality of the North Korean regime as we mourn its latest victim.”

The president drew criticism in May when he said he would be “honored” to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

“If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely, I would be honored to do it,” Trump said in an interview. “If it’s under the, again, under the right circumstances. But I would do that.”

The student’s father, Fred Warmbier, said last week that his son had been “brutalized and terrorized” by the Pyongyang government and that the family disbelieved North Korea’s story that his son had fallen into a coma after contracting botulism and being given a sleeping pill.

Doctors who examined Otto Warmbier after his release said there was no sign of botulism in his system.

Warmbier was freed after the U.S. State Department’s special envoy on North Korea, Joseph Yun, traveled to Pyongyang and demanded the student’s release on humanitarian grounds, capping a flurry of secret diplomatic contacts, a U.S. official said last week.

Tensions between the United States and North Korea have been heightened by dozens of North Korean missile launches and two nuclear bomb tests since the beginning of last year in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions. Pyongyang has also vowed to develop a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile capable of hitting the U.S. mainland.

China, North Korea’s main ally, lamented Warmbier’s death.

“It really is a tragedy. I hope that North Korea and the United States can properly handle the issue,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a regular press briefing.

Asked if the death would have an impact on high-level U.S.-China talks on Wednesday likely to focus on North Korea, Geng said China “remains committed to resolving the Korean Peninsula issue through dialogue and consultation”.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the United States holds North Korea accountable for Warmbier’s “unjust imprisonment” and demanded the release of three other U.S. citizens still held by Pyongyang – Korean-Americans Tony Kim, Kim Dong Chul and Kim Hak Song.

Offering condolence to the Warmbiers, South Korean President Moon Jae-in urged Pyongyang to swiftly return the foreign detainees including six South Koreans. [nL3N1JH1F0]

A spokesman for the family of one South Korean detainee sentenced to hard labor for life for spying in 2013 said the Warmbier’s death was “shocking and upsetting”.

“I thought American citizens might be treated better than South Koreans but looking at Otto’s case it is shocking. It also concerns us even more regarding the missionary Kim’s situation,” Joo Dong-sik, spokesman for the family of South Korean missionary Kim Jung-wook who remains in custody, told Reuters.

Korean-American missionary Kenneth Bae, who spent two years in North Korean captivity before his release in 2014, expressed sadness at Warmbier’s death, calling it an “outrage”.

“I cannot understand what the Warmbier family is feeling right now. But I mourn with them, and I pray for them,” Bae said in a statement.

Young Pioneer Tours, the group with which Warmbier traveled to North Korea, will no longer be organizing tours for U.S. citizens to the isolated country, Troy Collings, a company director, said in a statement.

Two of the other largest agencies to take Western tourists to North Korea also said they were reconsidering taking U.S. tourists.

Uri Tours, which is based in New Jersey, said on its website it was “reviewing its position on DPRK travel for American citizens”. DPRK is short for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea’s official title.

Beijing-based Koryo Tours said it was also reviewing whether or not to take U.S. citizens on tours to North Korea.

“This young man did not deserve the disproportionate sentence given to him,” the company said in a statement.

“What followed was a disgrace, which we categorically condemn – from the paucity of information provided during his detention, and the worrying lack of consular visits, to the distressing and horrifying condition in which he was returned to his family.”

(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by David Alexander and David Brunnstrom in Washington, and Christian Shepherd in Beijing, Ju-min Park and James Pearson in Seoul, Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Timothy Mclaughlin in Chicago; and Michelle Nichols in New York; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Toni Reinhold)

U.N. envoy urges North Korea to explain why freed U.S. man is in coma

FILE PHOTO - Otto Frederick Warmbier, a University of Virginia student who has been detained in North Korea since early January, attends a news conference in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this photo released by Kyodo February 29, 2016. Mandatory credit REUTERS/Kyodo

GENEVA (Reuters) – A United Nations human rights investigator called on North Korea on Friday to explain why an American student was in a coma when he was returned home this week after more than a year in detention there.

Otto Warmbier, 22, has a severe brain injury and is in a state of “unresponsive wakefulness”, his Ohio doctors said on Thursday.

His family said he had been in a coma since March

2016, shortly after he was sentenced to 15 years’ hard labor

in North Korea.

“While I welcome the news of Mr Warmbier’s release, I am very concerned about his condition, and the authorities have to provide a clear explanation about what made him slip into a coma,” Tomas Ojea Quintana, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), said in a statement issued in Geneva.

Warmbier, from a Cincinatti suburb, was arrested for trying to steal an item bearing a propaganda slogan, North Korean media reported. On Thursday, North Korea said that it had released him “on humanitarian grounds”.

The University of Virginia student’s father, Fred Warmbier,

said his son had been “brutalised and terrorised” by the North Korean government.

Fred Warmbier said the family did not believe North Korea’s

story that his son had fallen into a coma after contracting

botulism and being given a sleeping pill.

Ojea Quintana called on North Korea to “clarify the causes and circumstances” of Otto Warmbier’s release.

“His case serves as a reminder of the disastrous implications of the lack of access to adequate medical treatment for prisoners in the DPRK,” he said.

“His ordeal could have been prevented had he not been denied basic entitlements when he was arrested, such as access to consular officers and representation by an independent legal counsel of his choosing,” added Ojea Quintana, a lawyer and veteran U.N. rights expert.

North Korea is believed to operate political prison camps and foreign nationals have also been detained on political grounds, Ojea Quintana said. Two American university professors in Pyongyang were arrested this year for allegedly plotting anti-state acts.

A 2014 landmark report by a U.N. investigators cataloged massive human rights violations in North Korea which they said could amount to crimes against humanity.

Tens of thousands of people are detained across the isolated country in inhumane conditions and subjected to torture and forced labor, it said.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Andrew Roche)

Parents of U.S. student to detail his time in North Korean prison

FILE PHOTO - Otto Frederick Warmbier, a University of Virginia student who has been detained in North Korea since early January, attends a news conference in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this photo released by Kyodo February 29, 2016. Mandatory credit REUTERS/Kyodo

By Ginny McCabe

CINCINNATI (Reuters) – The parents of an American university student who was detained in North Korea are expected on Thursday to detail his mistreatment during 17 months in prison when he fell into a coma.

Otto Warmbier’s parents, Fred and Cindy, are scheduled to speak to the media at their son’s former high school in the Cincinnati suburb of Wyoming, Ohio.

Warmbier, 22, was “brutalized and terrorized” by the North Korean regime, his parents said in a statement released Tuesday before he arrived in the United States on a medevac flight.

Warmbier is receiving treatment at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, but details of his condition have not been released.

Warmbier, a University of Virginia student, was sentenced in March 2016 to 15 years of hard labor for trying to steal an item with a propaganda slogan, according to North Korean media.

Warmbier’s family said they were told by North Korean officials, through contacts with American envoys, that Warmbier fell ill from botulism some time after his trial and lapsed into a coma after taking a sleeping pill, the Washington Post reported.

The New York Times quoted a senior U.S. official as saying Washington received intelligence reports that Warmbier had been repeatedly beaten in custody.

Joseph Yun, the U.S. State Department’s special envoy on North Korea, traveled to Pyongyang and demanded Warmbier’s release on humanitarian grounds, capping a flurry of secret diplomatic contacts, a U.S. official said Tuesday.

The State Department is continuing to discuss three other detained Americans with North Korea.

Tensions between the United States and North Korea have been heightened by dozens of North Korean missile launches and two nuclear bomb tests since the beginning of last year. Pyongyang has also vowed to develop a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile capable of hitting the U.S. mainland.

(Reporting by Timothy Mclaughlin in Chicago; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

U.S. student, said to be in coma, released by North Korea

Otto Frederick Warmbier (C), a University of Virginia student who was detained in North Korea since early January, is taken to North Korea's top court in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this photo released by Kyodo March 16, 2016. Mandatory credit REUTERS/Kyodo

By Eric Walsh

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Otto Warmbier, a U.S. university student held captive in North Korea for 17 months, has been released, but a former U.S. official said on Tuesday he is in a coma and in urgent need of medical care.

Warmbier, 22, a University of Virginia student from suburban Cincinnati, was on his way back to the United States, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in a statement.

“Otto has been in a coma for over a year now and urgently needs proper medical care in the United States,” said Bill Richardson, a veteran former diplomat and politician who has played a role in past negotiations with North Korea, said after speaking to Warmbier’s parents.

The family said they were told by North Korean officials, through contacts with American envoys, that Warmbier fell ill from botulism sometime after his March 2016 trial and lapsed into a coma after taking a sleeping pill, the Washington Post reported.

“In no uncertain terms North Korea must explain the causes of his coma,” Richardson, whose Center for Global Engagement had directly sought Warmbier’s release with the North Korean government, said in a statement.

Tillerson, at a U.S. Senate hearing on Tuesday, declined to comment on Warmbier’s condition. A person who answered the phone at Warmbier’s family’s Ohio residence said: “No comment, thank you” and hung up.

Warmbier’s release came as former U.S. basketball star Dennis Rodman arrived in North Korea on Tuesday, returning to the increasingly isolated nuclear-armed country where he has previously met leader Kim Jong Un.

U.S. officials appeared to brush aside any speculation of a connection between Rodman’s controversial visit and Warmbier’s release.

A senior administration official said the Trump administration did not authorize Rodman’s trip. “This is him freelancing,” the official told Reuters.

The State Department is continuing to discuss the situation of three other detained Americans with North Korea, Tillerson said.

Since taking office in January, U.S. President Donald Trump has faced growing tensions with North Korea, which has conducted a series of ballistic missile tests in defiance of U.S. and international sanctions.

Warmbier was detained in January 2016 and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in March last year for trying to steal an item with a propaganda slogan, according to North Korean media.

“At the direction of the president, the Department of State has secured the release of Otto Warmbier from North Korea,” Tillerson said.

Richardson, a former Democratic congressman, U.N. Ambassador, U.S. energy secretary and ex-governor of New Mexico, welcomed Warmbier’s release but said “we are deeply concerned regarding his health.”

U.S. Senator Rob Portman of Ohio said: “Otto’s detainment and sentence was unnecessary and appalling, and North Korea should be universally condemned for its abhorrent behavior. Otto should have been released from the start.”

“Our son is coming home,” Fred Warmbier told the Washington Post. “At the moment, we’re just treating this like he’s been in an accident. We get to see our son Otto tonight.”

(Reporting by Eric Walsh; Additional reporting Steve Holland and Mark Hosenball; Writing by Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Marguerita Choy and James Dalgleish)

In Russia, state TV and the Internet tell a tale of two protests

Riot police detain a man during an anti-corruption protest organised by opposition leader Alexei Navalny, on Tverskaya Street in central Moscow, Russia. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

By Andrew Osborn

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Some of the biggest anti-Kremlin protests in years swept across Russia on Monday with over 1,000 people detained by the police ahead of a presidential election next year. But anyone relying on state TV would have concluded they were a non-event.

Vremya, state TV’s flagship evening news show, relegated news of the protests to item nine of 10, and, in a report lasting around 30 seconds, said less than 2,000 people had shown up in Moscow. Some 150 people had been detained for disobeying the police elsewhere in the city, it said.

The main news of the day, according to Vremya, had instead been President Vladimir Putin’s handing out of state awards.

The Internet, awash with images and videos of police hauling people off across the country and, in at least one case, of a protester being punched, had a different take.

A live feed organized by opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who was detained in Moscow before he could attend what the authorities said was an illegal protest, showed demonstrations in scores of cities from Vladivostok to St Petersburg and thousands of people converging on central Moscow.

Other footage showed some protesters chanting “Russia without Putin” and “Down with the Tsar.”

The competing versions of one day in Vladimir Putin’s Russia highlight the battle being fought between state TV, where most Russians get their news, and the Internet, which Putin critic Navalny is using to try to unseat the veteran Russian leader.

Ahead of a presidential election in March which Putin is expected to contest and that Navalny hopes to run in, the battle for Russians’ hearts and minds is escalating.

On the face of it, the contest is one-sided. Polls show that Putin, who has dominated Russian political life for the last 17 years, will comfortably win if he stands, while a poll last month said only 1 percent would vote for Navalny.

Putin has enjoyed glowing Soviet-style coverage on state TV for almost two decades. Navalny barely gets a look in, and if he does it is inevitably a negative reference.

The Kremlin and top government officials deliberately try not to mention his name, and state TV largely ignored Navalny’s last big protests, in March, too. Dmitry Kiselyov, anchor of Russia’s main weekly TV news show “Vesti Nedeli,” explained then that his show had ignored the demonstrations, the largest since 2012, because he viewed Navalny as a corrupt political chancer.

“Our Western colleagues would have done exactly the same,” said Kiselyov.

Handed a five-year suspended prison sentence in February for embezzlement, Navalny says he is not corrupt and that the conviction was politically-motivated to try to kill off his presidential campaign.

The 41-year-old lawyer has been trying to use the Internet to circumvent what he says is a TV blackout. He has set up his own You Tube channel, which has over 300,000 subscribers, become a prolific social media poster, and regularly circulates clips of himself criticizing Putin, 64, whom he calls “the old man.”

Partly funded by supporters’ campaign contributions, his online push has had some success, particularly among school children and students, though his support base includes older people, too, who typically live in Russia’s big cities.

A video he made accusing Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, a Putin ally, of living a luxury lifestyle far outstripping his official salary, has so far racked up more than 22 million online views. Medvedev said the allegations were nonsense.

Navalny’s detractors have gone online too.

A video likening him to Adolf Hitler has racked up over 2 million views on You Tube, as has a music video released ahead of Monday’s protests by pop singer Alisa Voks who urged young fans to “stay out of politics” and do their homework instead.

Businessman Alisher Usmanov, whom Navalny targeted in his Medvedev video, also used the Internet to hit back, making two videos of his own questioning Navalny’s probity.

Navalny’s critics, including some other anti-Kremlin politicians, accuse him of holding dangerously nationalist views and of having denigrated migrants in the past. Navalny says he is able to talk to, and connect with, different parts of the electorate.

Serving out a 30-day jail sentence for his role in organizing Monday’s protests, Navalny has mocked his opponents’ efforts to use the Internet.

He says his Medvedev video has been watched by more people than some TV programs, but for now he says state TV has the upper hand.

“Right now TV is more effective,” he told supporters after his release from jail in April after the last round of protests. “But we’re looking for new methods. We need to keep making videos.”

(Editing by Richard Balmforth)

Turkish police say seeking 144 people over links to failed coup, 35 detained

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkish police said on Tuesday they are seeking 144 people including police, soldiers and prosecutors, over suspected links to the network of a U.S.-based cleric blamed by Ankara for orchestrating last year’s failed coup.

In raids across 42 provinces, 35 of the 144 wanted people have already been detained, the police said in a statement, adding that the suspects were thought to be using ByLock, an encrypted messaging app the government says was used by preacher Fethullah Gulen’s followers.

Turkey accuses Gulen, who has lived in self-imposed exile for almost 20 years, of running a decades-long campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police and judiciary.

The investigation, launched by Istanbul chief prosecutor’s office, was targeting the Gulenist structure within the army, the police said, although the individuals also included academics and lawyers.

The cleric denies the charges.

Earlier, broadcaster CNN Turk reported that Turkish authorities issued arrest warrants for 33 people at the telecommunications watchdog and 36 people at the capital markets watchdog.

Since the aftermath of the failed July coup, authorities have arrested 50,000 people and sacked or suspended 150,000 from a wide range of professions including soldiers, police, teachers and public servants, over alleged links with terrorist groups.

As the arrests widened, criticism mounted, with opponents saying the crackdown had been used to crush all dissent against President Tayyip Erdogan.

(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk; Editing by David Dolan and Dominic Evans)