POLITICS

An innocent visit by President Dmitry Medvedev to Moscow State University’s journalism faculty turned into a full-blown scandal after students were detained for holding up signs asking defiant questions.

And far from helping get votes for the conservative, pro-Kremlin United Russia which Medvedev recently headed, the incident has also undermined his credentials as a “a liberal blogger,” analysts say.

What first looked like a presidential initiative to meet young journalists at Moscow State turned into a clearly staged event after it emerged that most journalists were barred from the premises, while members of the pro-Kremlin Nashi youth group were bused in to the building of the Journalism Department at 9 Mokhovaya Ulitsa to meet the president.

When some of the few students who were allowed to stand and greet Medvedev flashed pieces of paper with pointed questions about jailed oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and allegations of election rigging, the students were immediately seized by security guards and taken to a nearby police station for questioning.

The students were later released, but some reported that they had been threatened with expulsion by plain-clothed security officers. And while Journalism Faculty President Yasen Zasursky assured that there would be no expulsions, the incident infuriated part of a young, liberal and tech-savvy constituency that Medvedev has been courting throughout his presidency.

“I was offended by the president’s security service, that imposed their crude rules on our faculty,” Vera Kichanova, a journalism student, told The Moscow News. “We were not allowed inside the department, although we had student cards, and teachers had confirmed that we have the right to go in. Even the teachers could not get to their own lectures.”

Kichanova was one of seven students who had picketed the faculty and set up posters opposite the building at Ulitsa Mokhovaya.

Petition and second meeting

The outcry that spread through the blogosphere Thursday and Friday led to students demanding an apology from the president.

A Twitter hash-tag referring to the president as “pathetic” started trending on the microblogging site on Thursday.

“We, students, alumni and staff of the Moscow State University are outraged by the events that occurred on 20th of October during the visit of President Dmitry Medvedev to the Faculty. We demand an apology from Dmitry Medvedev and we want to ensure that this situation does not occur in the future,” a student petition to faculty dean Yelena Vartanova and President Yasen Zasursky read.

In response to the outcry, Medvedev’s spokeswoman Natalia Timakova said that the president would visit the faculty and students and answer any questions.

But it was too soon to tell whether a second visit would succeed in regaining the students’ trust.

“The fact that president said he would answer all the students’ questions is an argument in our favor. This is the guarantee that we should trust the president and this is his moral duty to do so,” Oleg Gervalov, coordinator of students’ organization MSK Zhourfak, told The Moscow News.

Journalism students were hoping on Monday to have a meeting with the faculty and staff to decide what questions to raise during a second visit.

Bad PR

Last Thursday’s meeting was seen as one of several by President Medvedev to shore up support for United Russia since Prime Minister Vladimir Putin offered that Medvedev head the party last month.

But in the run-up to the State Duma elections in December, experts doubt that meetings like this will help Medvedev’s ratings or those of the party.

“The visit to Moscow State was a genuinely negative experience for the president. The best thing now is for Medvedev to not get in United Russia’s way so they can get at least 50 percent of the vote,” Nikolai Petrov, an expert at the Carnegie Center in Moscow, told The Moscow News.

“It happened because it was organized, as usual, without thinking about the unusual atmosphere of the department. Historically, it is a significant place. A hundred years ago in exactly the same building on Ulitsa Mokhovaya, over a hundred Moscow State University professors and teachers quit in protest at police abuses,”

Petrov said. Petrov is convinced that because Medvedev is not a politician with popular support like Putin, mistakes like this could endanger his place at the top of the the United Russia party list.

“If United Russia’s result at the elections is really lower than expected, the question of whether Medvedev should lead the party list could be raised,” Petrov said.

Virtual reality president

Some activists suggest that Medvedev may not have been aware of what was actually happening during his visit.

Roman Dobrokhotov, who interrupted President Medvedev’s speech at a conference in December 2008 by asking him inconvenient questions, said that the president couldn’t imagine any protests happening at the faculty.

“The scandal has once again demonstrated that the president lives in a completely virtual reality. And not only he, but his aides, who organized such a meeting. They apparently sincerely believed that it would be good PR for him,” said Dobrokhotov, who was also arrested just like the journalism students for speaking out.

Curiously, Medvedev tried to speak out for Dobrokhotov during that conference, but Dobrokhotov was nevertheless taken out of the auditorium by security.