Good ol' Russia. Our mutual hatred of the terr'ists and our interest in the oil (having it, using it) make us fast friends, even - especially? - when we curtail democratic freedoms. Over the weekend, Russian police used anti-terrorism exercises to harass an academic conference on Finno-Ugric languages, such as the one spoken by the embittered and oppressed Mari people of south-central Russia. The Mari tongue is related to Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian, so it made sense for scholars of that language family to hold their international conference in the Mari capital, Joskar-Ola. But since the Mari are agitating for more autonomy, they got Putinized:

In one of the police exercises, the officers practiced removing a bomb from the location of the congress - the large stage of the Mari National Theatre. In another exercise they defused a dummy explosive in a Lada parked on the highway, and in another, they caught a terrorist after a shooting incident. In the imaginary situation, a sniper was removed from the building where the guests of the congress were housed.

Given these ham-fisted but effective measures, "an atmosphere of fear prevailed at the congress," and only half the scholars expected to attend did so. This harassment is the latest episode in a longer history of animosity between Russians and the Mari. According to the Finnish Helsingin Sanomat, "the latest wave of oppressive measures began last year when members of the Mari openly opposed the pro-Kremlin Presidential candidate Leonid Markelov, a supporter of hard-line nationalist politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky. When Markelov won, the Mari began suffering reprisals in the form of intimidation, job losses, and beatings." The European Parliament denounced this oppression, and of course Russia denies that it's even occurring. Sounds familiar...