Weekly Update

Read our summary of human rights developments in Russia over the past week: Week-ending 10 January 2020

Our new podcast: Sergei Nikitin and Simon Cosgrove start the New Year with a discussion of human rights-related events of the past week in Russia.

“But now any easing up of pressure by the authorities, to say nothing of repealing odious laws, is unlikely. All previous experience points to this.”
– Vyacheslav Bakhmin looks back on the year 2019 – translated by Marian Schwartz

“And what has Sakharov to do with this? The point is that Sakharov was not a reformer who based his views on a formalistic or narrowly logical approach. Behind the reforms he always saw the individual.” 
 – On the 30th anniversary of Andrei Sakharov’s death, Boris Altshuler looks at this remarkable person’s enduring impact on Russian society – translated by  Simon Cosgrove 

“Sakharov not only could have become, but indeed was a Russian Havel. However, he was unheeded and not recognised in this capacity.” 
 – Sergei Lukashevsky considers Andrei Sakharov as a ‘Russian Havel’ – translated by Mark Nuckols, Alissa Valles and Simon Cosgrove

“The Anti-Corruption Foundation has been searched once again. Members of the security forces visited the Foundation’s Moscow office, in the studios of the Navalny LIVE YouTube channel.”  – In their last weekly bulletin before the New Year break, OVD-Info reported on a police search of the offices of Aleksei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation – translated by Judith Fagelson

Memorial Human Rights Centre has delcared Sergei Surovtsev, a participant in last summer’s protests, a political prisoner.   – This press release is reprinted by kind permission of Memorial Human Rights Centre