Human Rights Defenders

10 June 2020

Svetlana Astrakhantseva, executive director of Moscow Helsinki Group

Source: Moscow Helsinki Group [original source: Facebook]

On 14 May the Moscow Helsinki Group appealed to the Russian Ministry of Construction to withdraw the draft federal law to amend Article 13 of the Law of the Russian Federation ‘On Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression’ and to rework it to take into account as far as possible the views of the Russian Constitutional Court. We await a response from the Ministry of Construction and continue to follow the situation closely.

It is important to note that during the public discussion on the regulation.gov.ru website, thanks to your participation, the Ministry of Construction’s bill was included in the top 5% by number of views and in the top 1% by negative rating of all 2,874 draft regulations posted since the beginning of this year.

But today the Ministry of Construction, having ignored all objections to the bill, submitted it for approval to the Government’s Legislative Commission, and, despite serious disagreements over the text at the session of the Commission, as expected the Commission approved it.

You can read more about the case of the return to Moscow of the victims of Stalinist repressions #RightToReturnHome #ПравоВернутьсяДомой from Grigory Vaypan:

“The Ministry of Construction ignored all objections to its shameful bill and dragged it through the government’s draft law commission on Monday.

“Aleksandr Chernykh writes that in the commission the bill was opposed by Mikhail Barshchevsky, the government’s envoy to the Constitutional and Supreme Courts, Tatiana Moskalkova, the Human Rights Commissioner for the Russian Federation, and experts from the Institute of Legislation and Comparative Law.

“Now the bill will be submitted to the government session – probably as soon as tomorrow. I asked Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Grigorenko to withdraw the bill and to arrange for it to be reworked it. If the bill is approved, the government will submit it to the Duma.

“Here will be a present for the Day of Russia! It’s a perfect illustration that today’s Russia is not for everyone. And certainly not for the victims of Soviet repression, who lived their whole lives and continue to live in exile today.

“It should be recalled that during the public discussion on regulation.gov.ru portal, thanks to your participation, the bill of the Ministry of Construction was included in the top 5% by number of views and in the top 1% by negative rating among all 2874 draft regulations posted since the beginning of this year. That is, the Ministry of Construction and the government commission don’t give a damn not only about the victims of repression but they also don’t give a damn about the Constitutional Court. And they don’t give a damn about you personally.

“You can help by sharing this news, please.”

Translated by Simon Cosgrove