Art is not a weak or irrelevant force: when everything is closed and the economy is in ruins, with mob brutality becoming the rule, there is immense release through the arts.
It would go on to have a huge impact, prompting global outrage at the police's brutality, becoming an iconic image of the struggle against a hated racist system and prompting a new wave of protest that would eventually lead to the end of apartheid.
Adler-Olsen may lack Larsson's political passion, but he brings great inventiveness to descriptions of the techniques of torture, which keeps the sadistic brutality from becoming repetitive or even (God help us) dull.
Such mass arrests and brutality are becoming increasingly common in West Papua and it is estimated that in the last two months, nearly 3,000 West Papuan people have been arrested by the Indonesian authorities.
Another leading opposition parliamentarian, the Indian lawyer Karpal Singh, is now on trial for sedition, and the recent death of an opposition party worker following interrogation has led to allegations that brutality is becoming widespread.
Many join the police or other agencies, with the result, says Ms Lokshina, that police brutality is becoming more widespread; there are even signs that torture techniques invented in Chechnya are spreading elsewhere.So it is no surprise that 87% of Russians have heard of the Soldiers' Mothers, according to a poll by Human Rights Watch.
Either way, stories of widespread poverty, disease, brutality and corruption are becoming unwelcome.
Meanwhile, at the coroner's office where Mario is a typist and file clerk, the brutality of the new regime is becoming grotesquely apparent.
In Tehran, memories of the Shah's brutality are fading and selling imperial wares is becoming less dangerous.
Update: The woman is being called "Neda" and her image is becoming a symbol of Iran's brutality against its own people.
A year later, while anger is greater than ever, there is a sense that Turkey's anti-government protesters many of whom are middle class and from the country's large urban areas are becoming worn-down by consistent police brutality.
