Reading news on subway can land you in jail in Russia

People in Russia could be arrested for reading news on a train: Reportedly, a person was arrested after the guy seating next to him on subway saw anti-war content on his phone.

• Cheryomushkinsky District Court of Moscow gave Muscovite Yury Samoilov 14 days of arrest for “distribution of extremist materials”.
• A fellow traveler on the subway peeped into his phone and called the cops because of “anti-war content”.
• The brother of the arrested, Nikolai Luchenkov, told about this to Mediazone.
• According to Lunchenkov, the detention and arrest of his brother took place on the same day, March 17.
• Only in the evening was Samoilov allowed to make a short phone call to his mother from the special detention center in Sakharovo.
• The police demanded from Samoilov to show them the contents of his smartphone and “found a bunch of pictures and photographs that “had a character that was discrediting the Russian army,” Lunchenkov said in his social networks.

Obviously, after Putin’s meeting with FSB chiefs in early March, and increased cases of “smoking in wrong places” (including a recent fire at FSB building in Rostov), new arrests are required, to show how security services successfully combat internal enemies of the state.

Advice to Russian citizens and visitors to Russia:

• Only read anti-war content at home, using special tablet or phone for that, but only via VPN and privacy browser.
• ‼️Don’t give police your password for the phone to unlock it (they have no right to see the contents; it’s covered by privacy laws).
• Delete conversations before going out.
• Don’t store passwords in the phone.
• Don’t use your real name in social networks.
• Use anti-peak security screen cover.

In occupied regions of Ukraine, people had been sent to “filtration camps” (prisons) for having pro-Ukrainian content on their phones since March 2022. In Russia, this hasn’t been happening before, but reports are, it’s starting happening already.

• In Russia-occupied areas of Ukraine, specialists were checking people’s phones with the use of special software, plugged into a computer.
• Many people purchased cheap second phones to show to police, and hid the phones they actually use. Phones often got confiscated by police.
• Your phone is the most incriminating piece of evidence, linked to all your online activities.