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meA woman is sitting on a bench, lighting up. The flames travel down her left arm, she pushes her bag. A man runs up, she rejects him. The flames surround her more and more, she takes off her jacket, wants to put out the flames, but the burning woman pushes him away. You have to see how it catches fire, falls off the bench and continues to burn on the ground. The woman, it is later reported, dies on the spot, the video will be published a little later on a Telegram channel.
The victim of the self-immolation on Friday afternoon in the city of Nizhny Novgorod 400 kilometers east of Moscow is journalist Irina Slavina. Obviously, the location was deliberately chosen: the headquarters of the local Ministry of the Interior. Because Slavina’s latest entry on her Facebook page says: “I ask that the Russian Federation be responsible for my death.” But people who arrived at the site of the self-immolation on Friday and placed flowers and candles in front of a black-and-white photo of the dead were convinced that it was the state’s measures that led Slavina to despair. They have broken.
The 47-year-old editor-in-chief of the local independent Internet newspaper “KozaPress”, who left her husband, daughter and mother behind, had been under pressure from the repressive apparatus for years. The family’s apartment was raided early Thursday morning. These searches usually take place in the morning to surprise unsuspecting target people. Twelve people from various authorities arrived at her apartment at six in the morning, Slawina described the scene. She was naked and clothed under the gaze of “a lady I don’t know.” The family was not allowed to call a lawyer.
Her colleagues describe her as fearless
Investigators were looking for brochures, flyers, accounts of “Open Russia”, “possibly an icon with the face of Mikhail Khodorkovsky,” Slavina wrote. “Open Russia”, the organization of President Vladimir Putin’s opponent who was imprisoned for ten years and now in exile, has been classified as “undesirable” in Russia since 2017; Working for them can be punishable by prison, but it can also turn into 240 hours of community service, as in the case of Jana Antonova from Krasnodar in southwestern Russia, whose fault consisted of some posts and vigils on Facebook.
Also in Nizhny Novgorod there is such a procedure on “Open Russia”, in which the journalist is only mentioned as a witness. But this status is abused to pressure insubordinate citizens. Slavina wrote that she did not have any material on “Open Russia”, but the investigators took what they found: USB sticks, laptops for the journalist and her daughter, the computer, phones, notebooks.
