Interfax: No “tightening of screws” after Nemtsov murder – Russian upper house speaker

(Interfax – March 4, 2015)

The murder of prominent opposition politician Boris Nemtsov was an attempt to destabilize and discredit Russia, but it will not lead to a clampdown on the opposition, Russian Federation Council speaker Valentina Matviyenko has said, as reported by privately-owned Russian news agency Interfax on 4 March.

“I am shocked by this murder… (ellipsis as published) It was a planned, high-profile act of political provocation aimed at destabilizing the situation in the country and discrediting Russia’s political system,” Matviyenko was quoted as saying.

“It happened on the eve of an opposition march and it is completely obvious that all this was not just by chance or coincidence,” Matviyenko added.

Later in her blog she wrote that “any attempts to plant the practice of political terrorism in Russia must be rooted out. Russia from its own historical experience knows better than many other countries that political murders not only don’t solve problems but, on the contrary, aggravate them. I am certain that this crime will be solved and the perpetrators identified and punished with the full force of the law,” Matviyenko said.

Matviyenko said she was sure Nemtsov’s murder would not lead to a “tightening of the screws” against the opposition.

“History shows that political murders were often used [by governments] to switch to totalitarianism. There are plenty of examples of this. And in our country today some are coming out with ‘scare stories’: the murder of Nemtsov, they say, will inevitably be used by the Russian authorities to ‘tighten the screws’, to persecute the opposition. Nothing could be further from the truth. The situation in the country is stable. I see that as evidence of a high degree of consolidation within Russian society, its commitment to the principles of democracy and observing human rights and freedom,” Matviyenko said.