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)
Please note we are taking a break during August.
Here is the link to our publications of the past week: Weekly Update.
Our review of this week’s news highlights the following:
– The latest trial of Yury Dmitriev continues in Petrozavodsk;
– In Yakutsk Aleksandr Gabyshev, a shaman, has been compulsorily confined to a psychiatric hospital;
– In Rostov-on-Don three Jehovah’s Witnesses were sentenced to long terms in prison for their faith;
– The ‘foreign agent’ laws have been used to penalise and intimidate journalists;
– The designation of the Anti-Corruption Foundation as extremist is being used against activists even though the Foundation itself has been closed down.
– The European Court of Human Rights handed down one ruling with regard to Russia, concerning torture.
Our videos and podcasts:
– In the latest in our series of English-language interviews, Mary Page talks with Peter Reddaway, professor emeritus of political science and international affairs at George Washington University;
– Answering Bill Bowring’s 25 questions in Russian this week is Sergei Trutnev, a human rights lawyer from Perm;
– This week we publish two editions of Simon & Sergei‘s Russian-language podcast:
– – with Alena Vershinina, a journalist currently working with Radio Svoboda;
– – and a second podcast with Grigory Vaipan, a human rights lawyer specialising in constitutional and international law.
Our translations this week are:
– The latest weekly news round-up from OVD-Info;
– Activists plan to mark the 30th anniversary of the failure of the attempted coup of August 1991;
– Galina Arapova looks back at a quarter of a century of defending freedom of expression;
– Moscow PEN Centre on the current attacks on freedom of expression;
– Zoya Svetova on the authorities offensive against freedom of expression;
– Grigory Melkonyants on the abolition of open access to videos of polling stations;
– Igor Yakovenko on the authorities’ offensive against civil society;
– Leonid Nikitinsky on the designation of the Institute of Law & Public Policy as a ‘foreign agent’;
– Kirill Koroteev on the ECtHR and the legalisation of same-sex unions;
– Lev Ponomarev on the situation of political prisoners in Crimea;
– Vera Vasilieva on unjust and politically motivated imprisonment;
– Sergei Lukashevsky on Vladimir Putin’s recent historical article on Russian and Ukrainian relations.
This week’s blogs are:
– Yury Samodurov on Yabloko and Aleksei Navalny;
– 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 here.
Thank you
Rights in Russia