The Moscow Times: Russia broke its daily coronavirus deaths record Wednesday, passing 900 fatalities as officials warn that new case numbers have tripled since last fall and are on course to pass the 30,000 mark.
RFE/RL: A Russian nongovernmental organization that has defended the rights of conscripts in the Russian Army for more than two decades says it has ceased its activities because it faces possible persecution from the authorities.
RFE/RL: An opposition activist in Siberia says he has left Russia to avoid possible detention amid an ongoing crackdown on people and organizations linked to jailed opposition politician Aleksei Navalny. Lev Gyammer, the former coordinator of the Protesting Kuzbass opposition movement in the city of Novokuznetsk, wrote on the VKontakte social network on October 5 that he is now “safe” in Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi.
RFE/RL: Natasha Zotova was in ninth grade when Anna Politkovskaya, a pathbreaking investigative journalist at the independent newspaper Novaya gazeta, was shot dead in her Moscow apartment building on October 7, 2006.
The Moscow Times: A prominent NGO that tracks abuses in Russia’s prison system says it has received “thousands” of leaked video clips showing inmates being beaten and tortured by guards in several prisons across the country.
The Moscow Times: A group of 45 Western countries demanded at the global toxic arms watchdog on Tuesday that Russia provide urgent answers about the poisoning of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny. Moscow now has 10 days to respond to the questions posed by the EU and countries including the United States, Canada and Australia, under the rules of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
The Moscow Times: Three female politicians who failed to gain seats in Russian parliamentary elections critics say were marred by fraud are launching a project that aims to prepare the next generation of women lawmakers.
Human Rights in Ukraine: The trial is drawing to an end in Russia of Seitumer and Osman Seitumerov, the two sons of a renowned Crimean Tatar historian, their uncle Rustem Seitmemetov, as well as of Amet Suleimanov, a Crimean Solidarity civic journalist with a grave heart condition. The four recognized political prisoners are facing 15-year sentences although they are not charged with any recognizable crime, and the defence has, during each hearing, demonstrated the falsified nature of the ‘evidence’ presented. The hearing on 1 October was no exception, but nor was the behaviour of the presiding judge Igor Kostin in effectively siding with the prosecution.
RFE/RL: Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov, known for his ruthless rule and threatening to kill his critics, has vowed to “protect human rights” at his inauguration for a fourth term leading the Caucasus region.
