Responding to Russian sff author Sergey Lukianenko’s statement that when he first visited Ukraine in the 1980s, children told him they would live better lives were it not for Moscow occupying their country, RT presenter Anton Krasovsky said children who criticized Russia should have been “thrown straight into a river with a strong current” reports Reuters. “They should have been drowned in the Tysyna (river),” Krasovsky said. “Just drown those children, drown them.” Alternatively, he said, they could be shoved into huts and burned.
Lukianenko, who was not visibly bothered by the comment, only replied, “In Russia [they] traditionally used rods. They are better than the river.” The Russian sff author is scheduled to be a guest of honor of the 2023 Chengdu Worldcon.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Sunday called for a global ban on the Russian state-controlled news outlet RT as an inciter of genocide. RT America permanently shut down operations in March.
The clip can be viewed on YouTube. (Auto-generated translation to English is an option.)
[Thanks to Borys Sydiuk for the story.]
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Cut him loose, Chengdu. Cut. Him. Loose.
I see, so he thinks beating them with rods is better than killing them. For small values of “better”.
Unfortunately, China is not significantly better. So who’s going to Chengdu?
When they show you who they are…
I really can’t imagine why anyone from North America would risk going to China given the repressive polices of Xi. You’re running a serious and very real risk of losing your personal freedom.
I guess Lukianenko was concerned that someone, somewhere might not be aware that he’s an absolutely terrible human being.
I wish I had enough money that I could realistically be said to be boycotting Chengdu. Alas, I couldn’t go even if China were a model of democracy and social justice.
There’s no possibility that Chengdu will give Lukianenko the boot.
At Chicon, I did ask the Chengdu folks what their gameplan was if the city was locked down again… as it just had a few days before. They really are just hoping it’s going to be all over by then, from what they said.
I posted the following message on my Facebook page linked with this File 770 post:
THIS pitiful excuse of a human being is one of the author Guest of Honor of the 81st World Science Fiction Convention in Chengdu, China next year.
I urge EVERYONE who cares about the integrity and honor of the World Science Fiction Society to contact the Chengdu Worldcon committee on their Facebook page:
https://m.facebook.com/100071156412838/
and their website
https://en.chengduworldcon.com/
and strenuously INSIST he be removed as a Guest of Honor!
“The director of Russia Today, Margarita Simonyan, reiterated that the magazine suspended the anchorman Anton Krasovsky, who four days ago, speaking live, asked that Ukrainian children are “drowned” and “burned”. He has since been in a storm, accused by Kiev of incitement to genocide.
The words of Anton Krasovsky were brutal and disgusting,” said Simonyan, who speaks of “momentary madness”. “Maybe Anton will explain what kind of temporary madness triggered them and why they came out of his mouth. It is difficult to believe that Krasovsky sincerely believed that children should be drowned,” she added on Telegram.
I read neither approval, nor disgust in Lukianenko’s face. His comment with the rod may have been an attempt at softening Krasovsky’s bizarre overreach. And as the anchorman asks if Lukianenko thinks Ukraine should be wiped off the map, Lukianenko answers with no.
No, I won’t be going to China.
I was just going to post that the presenter who made those disgusting remarks has been suspended, but Wolf beat me to it.
So if even the director of Russia Today believes that those remarks went way too far and suspended Krasovsky, then maybe the Chengdu Worldcon can finally do the right thing and remove Lukianenko as Guest of Honour.
Click.
From the US State Department Travel Advisory page. Reconsider travel to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the PRC’s Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR) due to arbitrary enforcement of local laws and COVID-19-related restrictions. Exercise increased caution in the PRC due to wrongful detentions.
This is from the Canadian Travel Advisory page.
Exercise a high degree of caution in China due to the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws.
Assuming that I’m allowed to travel to China (like anyone else from outside China, visas and COVID are the blocking issues), I currently intend to attend. I’m not doing it out of any great enthusiasm for visiting China, but because I’ve been asked to be deputy chair of the 2023 WSFS Business Meeting, and in my role as Chair of the WSFS Mark Protection Committee, which in theory is supposed to try and meet at Worldcon. (I think it unlikely that we’ll have a quorum, and am unsure whether there is any way for us to hold remote meetings there.) I plan to take no electronic devices other than possibly a non-internet-connected camera. No computers, no smartphones, etc. My current plans are to arrive just before the convention, do my WSFS jobs, and go home.
Assuming we can muster a quorum of WSFS members (remembering that it appears that most of the people attending the Worldcon will not be WSFS members), we’ll hold a WSFS Business Meeting. I’ve been thinking through what happens if there is the WSFSBM is unable to meet at all, and while it’s procedurally straightforward, it’s certainly inconvenient, as anything that was passed forward would die and advocates would have to start over, three vacancies would go unfilled on the WSFS MPC (we dealt with this in 2020 by interim appointments of the incumbents and electing six seats the following year instead of three), and no new business could pass and thus there would be no business passed on to the following Worldcon.
Donald Eastlake III, the WSFSBM chair, has a multi-year Chinese visa related to his employment, and asked me to assist him in China if I can attend. Someone has to try and keep the World Science Fiction Society’s official functions ticking over.
@Kevin Standlee–I agree with the importance of keeping WSFS functions working. I just can’t think of any other reasons that justify going.
Be careful. I’d recommend a dumbphone, if you’re not already planning on it.
A Reuters link to the statement from the director of RT: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-tv-presenter-says-sorry-faces-probe-call-drown-ukrainian-children-2022-10-24/
@Kevin Please do be careful.
Regarding travel to China, two things:
here’s a slightly aged listing of various cautionary notes and resources – (state dept., amex business travel advisories, etc) https://amazingstories.com/why-a-chengdu-worldcon-should-be-a-chengdhont-2/
Be aware that if you have ever (EVER) written or recorded or linked to anything that could be considered critical of the regime in China, they most likely have access to those connections and will use information obtained.
There are warnings in the materials previously linked to that state, unequivocally, that surveillance or intelligence operators in China WILL (not might, not maybe – WILL) obtain access to information on electronic devices and will use that information to gain additional information about you.
YOU WILL NOT BE TRAVELING TO A COUNTRY THAT EXTENDS RIGHTS TO INDIVIDUALS.
You can not count on being “unimportant” to stay under the radar.
If you apply for a Visa to attend this event, they will do a deep dive on you and they will find out everything.
If you’ve previously criticized this regime or its actions, for you own safety, don’t go.
(I know this sounds alarmist, but SF fans do not rise to the level of notoriety of a WNBA star, and Griner is STILL in prison over there.)
Beverly Griner is actually being detained in Russia, though what happened to her is clearly politically motivated as well.
Also – and this actually applies to a lot of countries in Asia and the Middle East – if you take any medication, have a doctor sign a statement that the medication has been prescribed and that you need to take it regularly and preferably have that statement translated into Chinese or other applicable language. Because a lot of countries in Asia and the Middle East have very strict drug policies and their definition of “drug” is not necessarily ours. Griner was detained over CBD oil and I’ve also heard of cases of people detained for aspirin or other over the counter stuff.
That said, if you have made any statements the Chinese government regards as problematic, they probably won’t grant you a visa in the first place. Simply not letting people into the country causes less potential diplomatic issues than arresting and detaining them while there. And the Chinese government usually has a modicum of reluctance about detaining and imprisoning westerners, because it’s bad press. Unless someone commits an actual crime, they will detain and deport westerners rather than lock them up.
There was a case a few years back of a German journalism student who travelled to China and interviewed human rights activists, which the government was not at all happy about. So they arrested him and put him on the next plane back to Germany.
I had seen the video, but missed it was Lukyanenko. This is just too much. I visited US when they were performing a genocide in Iraq, but at least I never went to a convention that honoured one of the supporters of the genocide. I will not do so this time either. Unless it is to protest Lukyanenko.
While it’s expected that a Worldcon GoH will be present in person, I keep having the vision of Lukianenko’s mug on a giant video screen while he speaks from home.
OGH: I remember that Superbike commercial (and the Futurama parody)
Unless your Russian is excellent, I would suggest ignoring the badly auto-captioned version and instead viewing the Russian Media Monitor upload on YouTube. The subtitles on that one are not auto-generated. They were added by Julia Davis, who is a Russia expert and is fluent in Russian. They are MUCH better and more reliable than auto-generated auto-translated captioning. I recommend following this YouTube channel and her Twitter account [@JuliaDavisNews] for more about what the Russian equivalents of Fox and OAN are getting up to. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lkshypC2Rk
Indeed remember 4 years ago –and at their request, invitation and cost– I went to Chengdu (re their possibly hosting a Worldcon). My previous item re this should be read. I did NOT bring my laptop or mobile phone. Whilst there I did use the Hotel’s desktop and on trying BBC (which switches from bbc(dot)co(dot)uk to bbc(dot)com overseas) the screen kept coming and going. The (in)famous Great Firewall of China. Then (tho I suspect it has since been blocked) I did get through on rte(dot)ie(stroke) news -remember I’m Irish!! I have to say that whilst the SFW (Science Fiction World magazine) people were delightful and excellent in hospitality and friendship, the dealings I had on arrival at Chengdu Airport (with the PRC Govt) were certainly not! Despite a copy of my formal Invite and a Chinese Visa in my Irish passport, I was fingerprinted and then interrogated for about 30 min as to why I was visiting! Almost downright rude-but then we are looking at a totalitarian, suspicious-of-any-democracy state.
For Bujold readers, ‘managing to get suspended by Russia Today for hate speech’ really is up there with ‘being cashiered by the Barrayarans for brutality’, isn’t it?
Let’s just say that Russia Today is so infamous for being a propaganda organ of the Russian government that it’s blocked (i.e. website not accessible and TV channel no longer available via satellite) in Germany and probably the rest of the EU as well.
Yep, RT is blocked by the whole EU. For some reason the propagandistic hate channel FOX News is still available though. Different standards.
This comment about drowning children has another significant relation to Lukianenko and WorldCon in China – in 1900 there was Blagoveshchensk Massacre (see wiki for details) where thousands of Chinese were forced to jump into fast-flowing Amur river (Russian-Chinese border) and drowned.
Sadly, similar comments are more norm than an exception in modern state TV in Russia
Cora Buhlert: Britney Griner has not just been detained in Russia, she has been sentenced to nine years in prison. The NEW YORK TIMES (in a piece I saw on Yahoo) says she is being sent to a labor colony, the successor to the Gulag.
Martin Wooster says Britney Griner has not just been detained in Russia, she has been sentenced to nine years in prison. The NEW YORK TIMES (in a piece I saw on Yahoo) says she is being sent to a labor colony, the successor to the Gulag.
A Moscow court rejected her appeal Tuesday, an anticipated result. It is still thought that Russia will eventually send the WNBA star home in a prisoner swap
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