cross-posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/735085
Czech President Petr Pavel says Russian citizens living abroad should be put under “strict surveillance” by intelligence services in their host countries.
“All Russians living in Western countries should be monitored much more than in the past because they are citizens of a nation that leads an aggressive war,” Pavel said in an interview with Radio Free Europe released Thursday.
This sounds familiar. Presumption of guilt based on their heritage or nation or origin is discrimation.
Quoting Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt, head of the Western Defense Command (1943):
I don’t want any of them [persons of Japanese ancestry] here. They are a dangerous element. There is no way to determine their loyalty… It makes no difference whether he is an American citizen, he is still a Japanese. American citizenship does not necessarily determine loyalty… But we must worry about the Japanese all the time until he is wiped off the map.
I think the main thing to understand is that these have been the actions of the Russian government, not necessarily individual Russian citizens. This seems like overkill to me.
To be clear, in no way am I giving Russia a free pass, obviously what they’ve done is reprehensible; I just know that there are a lot of Russian citizens who would also agree with that statement.
