Welcome to Rights in Russia
“[…] the striving for freedom never died out in Russia, and over the centuries in each generation there have been people who devoted their lives to the struggle for freedom, and sacrificed their lives for freedom’s sake.” – Liudmila Alekseeva (1927-2018)
“[…] We are not civil society. But we prepared the ground to enable civil society to emerge, and it has emerged.” – Arseny Roginsky (1946-2017)
Here is the link to our publications of the past week: Weekly Update.
Our review of this week’s news highlights the following:
– The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe has urged the release of Aleksei Navalny;
– Three organisations associated with Aleksei Navalny have been declared extremist and banned;
– Andrei Pivovarov, former head of the civil society group Open Russia, was remanded in custody for two months;
– Opposition politician Dmitry Gudkov was effectively forced out of the country after being threatened with prosecution;
– Criminal sanctions for Russian citizens having any kind of contact with foreign ‘undesirable’ organisations have been further tightened;
– The European Court of Human Rights issued 13 judgments finding violations by Russia.
Our videos and podcasts:
– Answering Bill Bowring’s 25 questions is Aleksei Sokolov, a human rights activist from Ekaterinburg, head of Legal Basis, a human rights NGO.
Our translations this week are:
– the latest weekly news round-up from OVD-Info;
– the latest weekly news round-up from Team 29;
– Boris Altshuler calls on President Putin to end criminal prosecutions for non-violent protests and to release political prisoners;
– Igor Kalyapin considers the possibility of a return of the GULAG;
– Pavel Chikov looks at the criminal investigation against Dmitry Gudkov;
– Valery Borshchev on prisoners’ wages;
– Memorial Human Rights Centre on the case of Vadim Bektemirov;
– Memorial Human Rights Centre on the designation of three organisations linked to Aleksei Navalny as ‘extremist’.
This week’s blogs:
– Simon Cosgrove looks back at events of the past week in Russia.
We hope you enjoy this Weekly Update.
If you would like to contribute in any way to our work, please get in touch by email [email protected]. And if you would like to make a donation to support our work you can do so easily here.
Thank you
Rights in Russia