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WTF!?

WTF!?

On June 20, Belgorod volunteer Nadezhda Rossinskaya, 30, also known as Nadine Geisler, was sentenced to 22 years in prison on charges of treason and aiding terrorism. At the start of the full-scale war, the volunteer group she founded, Army of Beauties, actively helped Ukrainian refugees. Later, Geisler left for Georgia, but then returned to Russia and was detained in February 2024. The grounds for her arrest under the article on “public calls for activities against state security” was an Instagram post calling for donations to the Ukrainian Azov battalion. The activist denied any involvement with this account. She was subsequently charged with “treason” and “aiding terrorism.”

Geisler’s case was heard by the 2nd Western District Military Court in part behind closed doors. Two Mediazona sources claim that before the trial began, FSB officers strongly discouraged Belgorod journalists from covering it. Many details are still unknown, but the activist’s closing statement, in which she refutes the investigation’s version point by point, sheds some light on the indictment.

In particular, she mentions accusations of directing drones in the Kharkiv region, although her passport did not contain any marks about crossing the Ukrainian border. As well as testimony against her given by her sister, who was brought to court from a psychoneurological hospital, accompanied by a nurse.

On June 20, Belgorod volunteer Nadezhda Rossinskaya, 30, also known as Nadine Geisler, was sentenced to 22 years in prison on charges of treason and aiding terrorism. At the start of the full-scale war, the volunteer group she founded, Army of Beauties, actively helped Ukrainian refugees. Later, Geisler left for Georgia, but then returned to Russia and was detained in February 2024. The grounds for her arrest under the article on “public calls for activities against state security” was an Instagram post calling for donations to the Ukrainian Azov battalion. The activist denied any involvement with this account. She was subsequently charged with “treason” and “aiding terrorism.”

Geisler’s case was heard by the 2nd Western District Military Court in part behind closed doors. Two Mediazona sources claim that before the trial began, FSB officers strongly discouraged Belgorod journalists from covering it. Many details are still unknown, but the activist’s closing statement, in which she refutes the investigation’s version point by point, sheds some light on the indictment.

In particular, she mentions accusations of directing drones in the Kharkiv region, although her passport did not contain any marks about crossing the Ukrainian border. As well as testimony against her given by her sister, who was brought to court from a psychoneurological hospital, accompanied by a nurse.

When women describe Afghanistan as hell, you need to understand that they are not exaggerating. For centuries, women in this country have been harassed, tormented and punished in various ways; deprived of their right to education, removed from all social spheres, punished in extrajudicial tribunals, forced marriages and honour killings, and threatened with physical and psychological violence. Afghan society is defiantly patriarchal, blending together bizarre traditions and widespread sexism to create a true hell. In the hellscapes that populate religions, people are condemned for their sins, but in ours women are punished for their innocence.

The participation of women in Afghanistan has always depended on the decisions of men. If a woman wants to enter and secure her place in society, the first obstacle she faces is the closed door of her home, sealed against her by a male member of her family. If some women manage to open this door, the government has made sure to block any avenue of social growth to them. The only thing left for Afghan women to do is to cry behind the closed doors that bar their access to schools, universities, offices or even entertainment venues.

But the occasional permissiveness and overwhelming constraints actioned by these opening and closing doors does not apply to all Afghan women, only to women in the big cities and to women in those provinces experiencing instability in their social status amid the waves of political change in the country. In rural areas, however, centuries of shifts in the country’s political make-up have had no impact whatsoever on many women’s lives. These rural women are neither exposed to nor benefit from any intermittent loosening of social rules, and their lives often remain stagnant. In the remote areas where those women live, women’s issues are resolved by men who rely on tradition. For them, social growth is a strange concept. I am a Pashtun woman from the southeast of Afghanistan, and I want to write about the women of this region, also from the Pashtun tribe, who are facing immense difficulties.