Weekly Update

Read our weekly news summary: Week-ending 24 January 2020

Listen to our third adventure into the world of podcasts:  Simon & Sergei: Human rights in Russia week-ending 24 January 2020

‘Judges called upon to consider complaints against acts of the President and “the entire royal host” will find themselves in an awkward position, to put it mildly; the seal over their heads is being replaced by a sword of Damocles.’   
 – Sergei Pashin considers the constitutional changes proposed by President Putin. Translated by Marian Schwartz

‘[…] backing the country into a corner and drawing a new iron curtain around it will not work now. I’m sure it can’t go on for long. That’s why I call myself a historical optimist.’   – Co-chair of the Moscow Helsinki Group Vyacheslav Bakhmin in an interview with Siberia.Realities looks back at his time as a prisoner of conscience and at the current state of human rights in post-Soviet Russia. Translated by Mary McAuley, Nina dePalma, Nathalie Wilson, Nicky Brown and Joanne Reynolds.

‘We note with great regret that elections, at least in the last decade and a half, have not been fulfilling the role assigned to them by the Constitution – to be the highest direct expression of the power of the people – and have not met international democratic standards.’   – A number of human rights defenders and other public figures have issued a statement calling for the Duma 2021 elections to meet international standards. Translated by Anna Bowles, James Lofthouse and Mark Nuckols.

‘Two of those convicted in the Hizb ut-Tahrir case have been released from prison. Nuri Primov and Rustem Vaitov, from Sevastopol, were both convicted in 2016 in a case against the regional branch of Hizb ut-Tahrir. Both have now been released. […] At the same time in Samara, two defendants in the so-called “fifth” Hizb ut-Tahrir case in Tatarstan have been sentenced to twelve years in prison.’  – OVD-Info’s Weekly Bulletin reports that two jailed members of Hizb ut-Tahrir have been released while two more have been sentenced to terms in prison. Translated by Judith Fagelson.