Week-ending 1 January 2020
“The Federal Security Service should be eliminated in its present form, and its activities over the entire period of its existence should be studied closely. Russia needs modern, professional, and newly shaped special services that obey the law and are subject to society’s oversight.”
– Lev Ponomarev, chair of For Human Rights, Valery Borshchev, co-chair of Moscow Helsinki Group, Svetlana Gannushkina, chair of Civic Assistance Committee
Source:
“The Federal Security Service should be eliminated in its present form, and its activities over the entire period of its existence should be studied closely. Russia needs modern, professional, and newly shaped special services that obey the law and are subject to society’s oversight. These demands must be the majority’s demands. And obviously they can’t be met until the current State’s paradigm is replaced. The situation in the country has become so difficult that only a nationwide campaign, a broad front of citizens, politicians, and public opinion leaders, can provide the impetus to change it. A top-down coup or a reshuffling of cadres cannot solve the problems that face the country and that have pushed it to the brink of survival. Russia must be freed from the criminal legacy of Soviet Cheka-ism, and this is its sole chance of rescue. Russia faces a task of unprecedented scale. We must counter State terror with a broad association of people and the broad public support of politicians speaking out for democracy, the supremacy of law, and human rights. The earliest this could happen is the 2021 election. It is impossible to steal the votes of millions of people, just as it is impossible to paralyze hundreds of thousands of observers. Our task consists in ensuring that there really are hundreds of thousands of observers and there really are millions of votes. This we can and must accomplish.”
– Lev Ponomarev, Valery Borshchev, Svetlana Gannushkina
Rights in Russia, 19 December 2020: ‘”The Federal Security Service should be eliminated in its present form.” Statement by human rights activists on Day of the Chekist, 20 December,’ by Lev Ponomarev, executive director of For Human Rights, Valery Borshchev, co-chair of the Moscow Helsinki Group, and Svetlana Gannushkina, chairman of Civic Assistance Committee. Source: Moscow Helsinki Group [original source: Echo Moskvy]
