Russian Rights Council Asks Prosecutor To Suspend Checks On NGOs

Kremlin and St. Basil's

(RIA Novosti – October 21, 2013) The Russian presidential human rights council has sent a letter to Prosecutor-General Yuriy Chayka, asking for checks on NGOs to be suspended until a complaint about the law “On foreign agents” is considered in the Constitutional Court, council head Mikhail Fedotov told state news agency RIA Novosti on 21 October. “Today we sent a […]

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Russian Telecoms Giant Slams New Surveillance Powers – Paper

Stylized Artist's Depiction of Shadowy Figures in Dark Coats and Dark Hats, One Carrying a Briefcase

(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, October 21, 2013) A Russian telecommunications giant has slammed government plans to give security services complete access to all Internet traffic by the middle of 2014, calling them unconstitutional, Kommersant newspaper reported Monday. The daily cited a letter submitted by mobile operator Vimpelcom to the Press and Communications Ministry as saying the proposed legislation violated fundamental […]

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Explainer: Russia’s Prison Amnesty

Russian Jail File Photo Showing Outer Wall, Windows, Barbed Wire

(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Claire Bigg – October 19, 2013) The Russian presidential human rights council has presented Vladimir Putin with its proposal for a sweeping prison amnesty to mark the 20th anniversary of the country’s adoption of its post-Soviet constitution. Up to one-quarter of the country’s inmates could walk free under the amnesty. Who initiated the planned amnesty? Russian […]

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Pressure Growing on Putin to Free Greenpeace Activists

Polar Map Showing Permafrost Areas, Adapted From NOAA.gov Graphic

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Yekaterina Kravtsova – October 18, 2013) International pressure on Russia over the arrest of Greenpeace activists mounted Thursday as 11 Nobel Peace Prize winners urged President Vladimir Putin to drop the piracy charges against them. The 11 laureates made such an appeal in a letter sent to the Russian president, Greenpeace said. The letter, which […]

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Amnesty proposed by Russian rights body could see high-profile prisoners freed

Russian Jail File Photo Showing Outer Wall, Windows, Barbed Wire

(Interfax – October 16, 2013) Anti-Kremlin protesters prosecuted in the so-called “Bolotnaya case” could be freed under the amnesty proposed by the Human Rights Council (HRC) under the Russian president, privately-owned Russian news agency Interfax reported on 16 October. The draft submitted to President Vladimir Putin specifically mentions people who “took part or were convicted for taking part in public […]

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Interfax: Russian politicians welcome Navalnyy news but Zhirinovskiy wants him banged up

File Photo of Alexei Navalny Being Grabbed by Police at Protest

(Interfax – October 16, 2013) Russian party leaders have for the most part welcomed the commutation of opposition leader and anti-corruption campaigner Aleksey Navalnyy’s sentence to a suspended one, on appeal, on 16 October. In reaction sampled by the Russian news agency Interfax, Vladimir Zhirinovskiy, of the nationalist Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR), stood out, with his call for a […]

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Broad Amnesty Proposals Need to Be ‘Revised’

Russian Jail File Photo Showing Outer Wall, Windows, Barbed Wire

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – October 15, 2013) State Duma deputies are calling for changes to the proposal prison amnesty that could benefit prominent convicts like former oil tycoon Khodorkovsky. State Duma deputies want to make changes to the broad amnesty proposal drafted by the Kremlin’s human rights council for the 20th anniversary of the Constitution, and are working on […]

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Interfax: Navalny says appellate court will not acquit him of Kirovles embezzlement charges

Alexei Navalny file photo

(Interfax – MOSCOW, October 15, 2013) Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny has said he does not expect the Kirov Regional Court to acquit him as it hears an appeal contesting Navalny’s embezzlement conviction on October 16. “I will be given a real or a suspended prison sentence, but I will not be acquitted,” he told the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper. However, […]

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Alekseyeva backs police actions in Biryulyovo

Lyudmila Alekseyeva file photo

(Interfax – MOSCOW, October 14, 2013) Lyudmila Alekseyeva, the chairman of the Moscow Helsinki Group, said the police officers ‘ actions during riots in the Moscow district Western Biryulyovo were right. “In this case, what has occurred should be classified as hooliganism. It truly was hooliganism, and the law enforcement agencies should punish the perpetrators,” Alekseyeva told Interfax on Monday. […]

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Hermitage’s Browder Wins Dismissal of Russian’s Libel Case

Memorial Flowers and Photo of Sergei Magnitsky

(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Jeremy Hodges – October 14, 2013) Hermitage Capital Management founder William Browder won the dismissal of a U.K. libel case filed by a former Russian policeman accused of playing a part in the 2009 death of legal and tax adviser Sergei Magnitsky. Judge Peregrine Simon ruled that the U.K. wasn’t the right jurisdiction for the ex-policeman, […]

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Rights activists propose applying constitution anniversary amnesty to Bolotnaya case suspects, Arctic Sunrise crew

Russian Jail File Photo Showing Outer Wall, Windows, Barbed Wire

(Interfax – MOSCOW, October 11, 2013) The amnesty campaign meant to mark the 20th anniversary of Russia’s constitution should apply to the suspects in the Bolotnaya Square clashes case, the Greenpeace activists detained onboard the vessel Arctic Sunrise and former Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the For Human Rights organization said in an address published on its website on Thursday. “A […]

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The Revolution Of The Nerds

Kremlin and St. Basil's

(RFE/RL – Brian Whitmore – October 10, 2013) The fact that a Moscow court found Mikhail Kosenko guilty of assaulting a police officer despite video evidence to the contrary didn’t exactly come as a surprise. In recent years, Russian courts have convicted Mikhail Khodorkovsky of stealing oil from himself and Aleksei Navalny of embezzling money without making a profit, just […]

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Kremlin Adviser Likens Greenpeace Piracy Charge to Gang Rape

Polar Map of Major Rail Lines in Russia, Canada and United States, With Hypothetical Additional Route Drawn In Connecting Them Across Bering Strait

(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Ilya Arkhipov & Henry Meyer – October 11, 2013) President Vladimir Putin’s human rights adviser urged prosecutors to drop piracy charges against Greenpeace activists for an Arctic protest, saying it’s as stupid as accusing them of raping the oil platform they scaled. “These charges are laughable because there isn’t the slightest justification for accusing the crew […]

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Top Clinic Denies Return to Soviet-Era Punitive Psychiatry

Kremlin and St. Basil's

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Natalya Krainova – October 10, 2013) Russia’s top psychiatric institution held an open house Wednesday in an attempt to popularize its work, amid speculation about a revival of Soviet-style punitive psychiatry following the sentencing of an opposition protester to mandatory mental treatment. The Serbsky Center of Social and Judicial Psychiatry welcomed about a dozen journalists […]

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Russian State Duma passes bill in first reading giving new grounds to inspect NGOs

Russian Duma Building

(Interfax – MOSCOW, October 9, 2013) The Russian State Duma has passed a bill in the first reading expanding grounds for unscheduled inspections of non-governmental organizations (NGO). According to the explanatory materials to the bill, it is expected to expand the list of grounds over which the Justice Ministry can hold unscheduled inspections of NGOs regarding which the information on […]

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Human rights council will ask prosecutor general to drop piracy charge against Arctic Sunrise crew – Fedotov

Polar Map Showing Permafrost Areas, Adapted From NOAA.gov Graphic

(Interfax – MOSCOW, October 10, 2013) The piracy charges, based on which the crew of the Greenpeace icebreaker Arctic Sunrise was arrested, are ungrounded and should be reconsidered, Mikhail Fedotov, the head of the presidential human rights council, said. “I hope this decision will be reconsidered. In any case, we will turn to the prosecutor general. He has potential for […]

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Russians doubt perpetrators of Politkovskaya murder will be tracked down – poll

(Interfax – MOSCOW, October 7, 2013) Forty-seven percent of Russians polled in September still have queries about who could benefit from the killing of Novaya Gazeta reporter Anna Politkovskaya seven years ago. Fifteen percent of respondents said the opposition forces, “interested in destabilization” could have been behind the killing, according to Levada Center pollster, and 12% said “Ramzan Kadyrov” and […]

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Moscow Times: Majority of Russians Think Greenpeace Arrests Appropriate

Polar Map Showing Permafrost Areas, Adapted From NOAA.gov Graphic

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – October 3, 2013) The majority of Russians approve of the piracy charges against 28 Greenpeace activists who were detained in late September after trying to climb an Gazprom-owned oil drilling rig in the Arctic to protest its environmental impact. A survey from state pollster VTsIOM published Wednesday showed that 60 percent of the respondents believe […]

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Interfax: Loss of ‘sovereignty’ unacceptable price for quality of life – Putin

File Photo of Vladimir Putin Sitting at Desk

(Interfax – MOSCOW, October 2, 2013) Loss of national “sovereignty” is not an acceptable price for higher quality of life in Russia, President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday. “It’s impossible for Russia to swap sovereignty for better quality of life, because if we lose our sovereignty, we will lose the country,” Putin said at a meeting of the Council on […]

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The Gulag within: Harsh realities of Russian penal colonies

Kremlin and St. Basil's

(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Anna Arutunyan – October 1, 2013) For 22-year-old Lena Ivanova, work at a penal colony sewing military uniforms began at 8:30 a.m. and could last well into the night. “There were situations when there was a big [production] order, and the warden would call everyone outside [into the square] rain or snow, and we were […]

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Interfax: Ombudsman Lukin hopes Greenpeace activists detained in Russia will not be too severely punished

Vladimir Lukin file photo

(Interfax – MOSCOW. September 24, 2013) Russia’s human rights commissioner Vladimir Lukin said he expected that the Russian authorities would not punish the activists of the Greenpeace environmental organization too severely for their protest rally against oil extraction in the Pechora Sea. “I hope that our authorities will realize that they nevertheless had admirable and noble motives and that they […]

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Pussy Riot and Prison Reform

Kremlin and St. Basil's

(RIA Novosti – Natalia Antonova, Acting Editor-in-Chief of The Moscow News – September 23, 2013) This week, Lenta.ru published a letter from Pussy Riot’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, who is serving a two-year sentence in a penal colony for having participated in a “punk prayer” in Russia’s main cathedral back in the winter of 2012. Tolokonnikova is serving her time in a […]

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TRANSCRIPT: [Putin at] Meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club (partial transcript continued)

File Photo of Vladimir Putin at Valdai Club 2013 Meeting, Adapted from Screenshot of Valdai Club Video at youtube.com

(Kremlin.ru – Novgorod Region, September 19, 2013) SVETLANA MIRONYUK: Thank you. Mr President, Mr Rühe wants to respond. Mr Rühe, please go ahead. VOLKER RÜHE: President Putin, I go along with you, what you said on Iraq. And we were as critical; the French were, also. It was not a NATO ­ it was an American decision. But Libya was […]

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A Dividing Issue, 20 Years On: Russia’s 1993 Constitutional Crisis

File Photo of Parliament Building Billowing Smoke in 1993

(RIA Novosti – Konstantin von Eggert – September 23, 2013) Konstantin Eggert was Diplomatic Correspondent for Izvestia in the 1990s and later the BBC Russian Service Moscow Bureau Editor. Konstantin has also spent some time working as ExxonMobil Vice President in Russia. Conflict is raging in Russia again. Luckily, not on the streets but in the country’s spirited blogosphere. The […]

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Interview: McCain On Russia, Putin, And His Pravda.ru Op-Ed

John McCain file photo

(RFE/RL – rferl.org – NEW YORK, September 20, 2013) U.S. Senator John McCain (Republican-Arizona) has defended an opinion piece he wrote this week that was critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin, telling Yuri Zhigalkin of RFE/RL’s Russian Service that his remarks were based on the facts about rights abuses in Russia. RFE/RL: Senator, I had the feeling that critics and […]

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RIA Novosti: Russian Parliamentary Committee Approves NGO Snap-Check Bill

Kremlin and St. Basil's

(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, September 18, 2013) ­ A relevant parliamentary committee on Wednesday recommended that lawmakers pass a bill providing additional grounds for unscheduled checks of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The committee for public unions and organizations recommended that the bill, submitted by the Russian government in June, be passed in its first reading. According to the bill, grounds for […]

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Could U.S. Assets Seizure Lead To Expansion Of Magnitsky Blacklist?

Memorial Flowers and Photo of Sergei Magnitsky

(RFE/RL – rferl.org – Richard Solash – WASHINGTON, September 18, 2013)  As shady Russian businessmen snapped up luxury apartments in New York, lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was confined to the few square meters of a Moscow jail cell. He would die there under suspicious circumstances in 2009 after revealing a scheme by a circle of high-ranking government officials and associates to […]

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Russians More Skeptical Over Prosecution of Opposition – Poll

File Photo of Alexei Navalny Being Grabbed by Police at Protest

(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, September 13, 2013) ­ Public awareness in Russia of two criminal investigations and trials of leading opposition figures is on the rise, and the public is increasingly seeing these issues as politically motivated, a new poll has found. The survey published by the independent pollster Levada Center yesterday asked respondents about their knowledge of anti-corruption activist […]

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How the Moscow mayoral election was stolen

Sergei Sobyanin file photo

(Business New Europe – bne.eu – MOSCOW BLOG, September 12, 2013) Everyone assumes that the Kremlin cheats when it comes to elections. Did the Kremlin steal the Moscow City election for mayor on September 8 from opposition blogger Alexei Navalny? Ballot stuffing has been par for the course. It is widely accepted that the authorities added about 12% to the […]

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Russia’s Disabled ‘Face Uphill Battle’

File Photo of Back of Wheelchari with Line of Persons in Business Dress in Background

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Natalya Krainova – September 12, 2013) With the upcoming Paralympic Games in Sochi set to laud disabled athletes for their accomplishments, ordinary members of Russia’s disabled population are still “facing an uphill battle” every day due to a lack of proper infrastructure and general discrimination, Human Rights Watch said in a report released Wednesday. The […]

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Roizman Called In for Questioning 2 Days After Mayoral Win

Yekaterinburg file photo

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – September 11, 2013) Opposition politician Yevgeny Roizman, who won Sunday’s mayoral vote in Yekaterinburg, was scheduled to be questioned by investigators Tuesday as a witness in a criminal case against a former employee of his City Without Drugs foundation. Roizman, an outspoken critic of the Kremlin, was one of the few opposition members to win […]

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How much does the rest of the world hate Russia?

World Map Showing Continents, Greens, Browns, Ice

(Business New Europe – bne.eu – Ben Aris – September 11, 2013) How much does the rest of the world hate Russia? Answer: a lot. This excerpt below is part of an internal memo by a major US bank, which will remain nameless, to clients on the results of the Moscow mayoral elections at the weekend. What is supposed to […]

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Interfax: Foreigners worried about North Caucasus ‘had better look at themselves’ – Putin

File Photo of Vladimir Putin Sitting at Desk

(Interfax – Novo-Ogarevo, September 9, 2013) Russian President Vladimir Putin believes that it is necessary, while defending human rights and freedoms in the North Caucasus, not to ignore sweeping accusations of allegedly widespread violations of human rights in the region. “Attempts by foreign states to use the existing problems in the North Caucasus to the detriment of Russia should be […]

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NEW BOOK: Law, Rights and Ideology in Russia: Landmarks in the Destiny of a Great Power

Map of Russia

Subject: New book: Law, Rights and Ideology in Russia: Landmarks in the Destiny of a Great Power Date: Tue, 3 Sep 2013 From: “Bill Bowring” <b.bowring@bbk.ac.uk> My new Routledge book: “Law, Rights and Ideology in Russia: Landmarks in the Destiny of a Great Power” http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415683463/ Law, Rights and Ideology in Russia: Landmarks in the destiny of a great power brings […]

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Stalin Won’t Be Called a ‘Bloody Butcher’ in New Standardized History Texts

File Photo of Prison in Russia with Wall, Barbed Wire, Guard Tower

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – September 6, 2013) The October Revolution will be considered a “process” and the term “bloody butcher” won’t be applied to Soviet leader Josef Stalin or his henchmen. Russian historians are on their way to creating a single standard for how history is taught to schoolchildren. Historians from the Russian Academy of Sciences reached several agreements […]

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Leading Russian rights activists not to meet Obama in St. Petersburg

File Photo of Barack Obama Sitting at Desk with Mike McFaul Standing Next to Him Facing Him

(Interfax – Moscow, September 4, 2013) The veterans of the Russian human rights movement, Lyudmila Alekseyeva, Lev Ponomarev and Svetlana Gannushkina, have given up on taking part in a meeting with US President Barack Obama in St Petersburg since its date is constantly being changed. “They have changed all this business several times: at first 5 September then 6 September, […]

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Moscow Gives Office to Evicted Human Rights NGO

Aerial View of Moscow From Beyond Stadium, file photo

(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, September 5, 2013) ­ The Moscow authorities have donated an office to a Russian human rights NGO, a source in the city administration told RIA Novosti Thursday, after it was evicted from its previous home in July. The For Human Rights movement’s new downtown office will be free of charge to the organization for 49 years, […]

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Rights group praises Russian Supreme Court’s refusal to rehabilitate top NKVD officer

File Photo of Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin

(Interfax – MOSCOW, August 27, 2013) Russian human rights group Memorial has expressed support for Tuesday’s refusal of the Russian Supreme Court to rehabilitate Yakov Agranov, a top figure in Stalin’s NKVD secret police who is believed to have been one of the architects of the 1930s reign of terror. Agranov was executed in 1938. In January 2013 the office […]

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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 […]

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Why young Russians are leaving the country

Kremlin and St. Basil's

(Russia Beyond the Headlines – rbth.ru – Marina Obrazkova, RBTH – August 16, 2013) Russians have become more relaxed about emigration ­ yet contrasting opinions still exist. While some people are willing to abandon their native country in search of a better life, others find it difficult to think of leaving their families and friends behind. Almost 50 percent of […]

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No political will to find rights activist Estemirova’s real murderers – activists

File Photo of Flowers and Photo of Natalya Estemirova

(Interfax – MOSCOW, August 15, 2013) Russian human rights activists do not believe the murder of Memorial center activist Natalya Estemirova in Grozny is being properly investigated and say there is no political will to find the actual murderers. “It is certain that there is no political will to solve this case,” Svetlana Gannushkina, the head of the Civil Assistance […]

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Politkovskaya Suspect Shot in Central Moscow

File Photo of Mourners with Photo of Anna Politkovskaya

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Ivan Nechepurenko – August 16, 2013) A defendant in the ongoing trial over the murder of prominent investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya was shot and wounded near Ulitsa 1905 Goda metro on Wednesday evening, his lawyer said. Dzhabrail Makhmudov, who along with his two Chechen brothers Rustam and Ibragim is accused of being involved in the […]

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Quarter of Russians allege violations of their rights in past 2 years – poll

Kremlin and St. Basil's

(Interfax – MOSCOW. Aug 13, 2013) Nearly half of Russians (47%) think their rights cannot be protected in the majority of cases, and 38% claim the opposite. Twenty-four percent said their rights had been breached in the past 24 months and only 7% managed to defend themselves, the Public Opinion Foundation said in comment on a poll of 1,500 respondents […]

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Aleksei Navalny takes on ‘the fools and the roads’

Alexei Navalny file photo

(opendemocracy.net – Mikhail Loginov – August 5, 2013) Mikhail Loginov is a journalist and novelist based in St Petersburg. He is the author of the recently published bestselling political thriller “Battle for Kremlin”. As the saying goes: ‘Russia has two misfortunes: the fools and the roads.’ Aleksei Navalny is just about still standing for election as Mayor of Moscow, but, […]

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Russia’s judicial system: summertime sadness

Russian Constitutional Court file photo

(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Natalia Antonova, Acting Editor-in-Chief – August 6, 2013) It was a bit of throwaway news last week: A young man behind the wheel of a Ferrari had struck and killed a pensioner in Moscow in early July. The young man in question, rumored to be the son of a well-known businessman, was let go under […]

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Moscow’s killing fields: inside a Stalinist execution site

File Photo of Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin

(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Joy Neumeyer – August 5, 2013) Across from the sprawling Gazprom offices on Moscow’s southern fringes, there is a forest. It is quiet, full of mushrooms and dead leaves. The only people usually there are a pair of monks, who live by a church built on the property. The forest is part of a village […]

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Russian human rights organization opens website to report September 8 election violations

Arm and Torso of Person in Brown Sweater Placing Paper Ballot into Ballot Box

(Interfax – August 3, 2013) The Russian movement for the protection of the rights of voters, Golos, has opened a website with a map [http://www.kartanarusheniy.org/] which will record all violations at local elections on 8 September, Interfax news agency reported on 2 August, quoting the movement’s press service. The press service said that people would be able to add information […]

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RIA Novosti: Activists Who Reported ‘Putin’s Palace’ Jailed for Extortion

Kremlin and St. Basil's

(RIA Novosti – MOSCOW, August 5, 2013) ­ Four environmental activists in southern Russia have been given lengthy jail terms for extorting money from a real estate developer, though they denied the accusations, Russian media reported. Four employees of the Gelendzhik Human Rights Center in the Krasnodar Region were given jail terms of between eight and 13 years in a […]

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Urlashov Faces More Charges

Yevgeny Urlashov file photo

(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Yekaterina Kravtsova – August 1, 2013) Investigators said Wednesday that they were preparing a new criminal case against former Yaroslavl Mayor Yevgeny Urlashov, who was arrested on attempted bribery charges in early July in what his supporters say was a frame-up to ruin his party’s chances of winning regional elections. Urlashov became a nationally known […]

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‘Foreign Agents’ fight for survival

Kremlin and St. Basil's

(opendemocracy.net – Yuri Dzhibladze – July 30, 2013) Yuri Dzhibladze is founder and president of the Centre for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights, a Russian public policy and advocacy NGO. The Centre for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights has achieved much in fifteen years, but now, like so many NGOs, it has been branded a ‘foreign […]

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