Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Presidential Dancing Censored

In case you missed this because you don't live in Russia or watch a lot of international news, one of the bigger stories coming out of Russia is from last week where a group of comedians make a parody of President Medvedev's robotic dancing.  

The clip shot from a cell phone soon went viral and millions of people have seen it around the world.

A group of Russian comedians came together and created a parody video of the president's dancing.  The video was then submitted to a very popular home video show and took first prize.  The video was never shown and edited out on TV even though it took first place.  Here is the parody in its entirety.

President Medvedev's press secretary says that The President has no problem with people impersonating him.

There is no indication of whether the censorship was as a result of pressure from the President or if this simply was self censorship based on fear.  Given Russia's poor record with dealing with political dissent it could have been either one.  There are many other high profile deaths among Russian dissenting journalists and this could possibly be a result of those.

The important thing in all of this is that freedom of speech has been under attack in Russia.  Let's hope that these dictatorial tactics are revealed and the people responsible for The Kremlin's intimidation tactics are brought to justice.

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