Word: draconian
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...ordinary Russians, the scenes of carnage were numbingly familiar, yet another reminder of how dangerous the country has become since President Vladimir Putin came to power. While Putin has imposed draconian curbs on the media and created a tame Parliament, he has not been able to pacify Chechnya, the breakaway republic whose separatists were swiftly blamed for the subway bombing. In 1999 Putin, then a new and little-known Prime Minister, made his name by ordering the reinvasion of Chechnya. Military commanders promised a speedy victory; instead, a radical, fundamentalist wing of the guerrilla movement has brought...
...people escaped. Despite the darkness, fire and the acrid smoke, witnesses said passengers were remarkably calm. Could they be getting used to such atrocities? The underground carnage was yet another reminder of how dangerous Russia has become since President Vladimir Putin came to power. While Putin has imposed draconian curbs on the media and created a tame parliament - some of whose members are now urging him to extend the presidential term from four to seven years - he has not been able to pacify Chechnya, the breakaway republic whose separatists were swiftly blamed for the subway bombing. In 1999 Putin, then...
...senior Italian antiterror official admits that increased powers have been abused. "We cannot be indiscriminate, which would be a great victory for the terrorists who are seeking to create a clash of civilizations," he says. That's the argument of civil-rights activists too. "Our concern is that draconian policies are usually counterproductive," says Hugill. The committee of British parliamentarians, which blasted internment for foreign terror suspects, also criticized the government for not trying alternatives that might be equally effective, like electronic tagging and intensive surveillance, or giving prosecutors more tools to convict terrorists in open court, like admitting wiretap...
...court trying terrorism cases sentenced him to death, along with Guru and Afzal. But last week Geelani, 41, was set free by a New Delhi appeals court, which said the evidence did "not even remotely" point toward his guilt. Human-rights activists were unsurprised, saying the government has used draconian anti-terrorism laws to harass Muslims and other minorities for years...
...original negative of another entry, Babak Payami's Silence Between Two Thoughts; Payami reassembled the film from his computer files and showed it on video. The story is set in a country similar to Afghanistan under the Taliban, where fundamentalist clerics move into villages and set up a new Draconian order. The film's protagonist is one of their henchmen, who has been told to kill a young woman in custody for an unnamed crime. The woman is confined to a hutlike cage, where she breathes heavily; she is a wolf with its leg in a trap, in agony...