Putin to meet with members of human rights council – newspaper

Mikhail Fedotov file photo

(Interfax – August 19, 2013) Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet with members of the presidential human rights council on September 3, the newspaper Vedomosti reported, citing sources with knowledge on the matter, on Monday.

Putin was earlier scheduled to meet with his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama in Moscow on September 3.

Mikhail Fedotov, chairman of the human rights council and presidential adviser, has confirmed that Putin will meet with members of the human rights council in early September.

Kirill Kabanov, a member of the council, said the meeting between the president and members of the council was initially scheduled for “may-June, but the president could not make it because he was too busy.”

“The exact date of the meeting became known about two months ago,” he said.

According to Vedomosti, the date of the meeting has not been determined yet and the human rights council will meet on August 22 to discuss and approve the list of issues for reports. During the meeting a new amnesty timed to the 20th anniversary of the Constitution may be submitted to the president.

Specifically, presidential adviser Mikhail Fedotov intends to suggest amnestying all people convicted for non-violent crimes committed in the 1990s and the 2000s.

“The amnesty could apply both to convicts and those whose cases have not been resolved yet. Among the amnestied people could be former Yukos CEOs Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev and those who persecuted them,” Fedotov told Vedomosti.

After the reports, members of the human rights council will discuss other issues, which may involve the “experts’ case,” the report to the president on the human rights council’s intention to analyze the Kirovles case, in which opposition activist Alexei Navalny was convicted in July, the “Bolotnaya case,” and the case involving village teacher Ilya Farber, who was sentenced to seven years and one month in a high-security colony for bribery, the newspaper has reported.

The president last met with members of the human rights council in November 2012, Vedomosti reported.

In the meantime, a Kremlin official would not comment on the president’s schedule to Vedomosti.

[featured image of Mikhail Fedotov is file photo]

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