Russian official experts say Human Rights Watch politically biased

(Interfax – January 31, 2013)

Member of the Russian Public Chamber political analyst Sergey Markov has said that a report by the international human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW), which criticized Russia, was politically motivated, Russian Interfax news agency reported on 31 January.

“Human Rights Watch is a very good organization on the whole. However, their observations about Russia and other major countries, such as the USA, China, Great Britain, Israel, are very far from reality. With regards to Russia, their reports are based not on facts but on politics. Therefore, we can safely ignore such observations,” Markov told Interfax.

According to the HRW report, in 2012 the Russian authorities launched a crackdown on civil society, the biggest in the entire post-Soviet history. Human rights activists believe that the Russian authorities “intervened in the activities of non-governmental organizations” and “harassed activists”, and the Duma adopted a series of “restrictive laws”.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Aleksandr Lukashevich said he did not agree that the situation with human rights was extremely bad.

The HRW report does not take into account domestic issues, head of the Political Theory department of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) Yan Vaslavskiy said, as reported by RIA Novosti on 31 January. Vaslavskiy also said that the Russians see human rights issues differently from foreigners, and the study of Russian society should be more comprehensive and thorough.

“Human Rights Watch criticizes everybody. It criticizes Russia strongly and consistently but not always justifiably. There could be several explanations. First, Russia can not please everyone,” he said, adding that he had questions about the research methodology.

He also believes that the report “did not take into account domestic issues”.

“Russian citizens care much less about these problems, and they see them differently than people abroad,” the analyst said.

According to director-general of the Institute of Foreign Policy Research and Initiatives (INVISIN) Veronika Krasheninnikova, HRW’s criticism of the Russian authorities shows that Russia is on the right path to restore its sovereignty. She said that HRW is one of many human rights organizations, and the report reflects the personal opinion of its employees and management, so there is little reason to listen to them.

“A lot of people won’t be please with the restoration of Russia’s sovereignty. This is a normal standard situation, which only confirms that we are on the right track,” Krasheninnikova said.

Russian human rights activist Lev Ponomarev partly agreed with the conclusions of Human Rights Watch that 2012 was the worst year in Russia’s post-Soviet history from the human rights point of view.

“If we do not count the war in Chechnya, then I agree perhaps. Indeed, last year the incidence of human rights abuse increased. From the point of view of political and human rights, the situation became worse, because of the law on rallies, NGOs and defamation,” he said.

Co-chairman of the Solidarity movement Ilya Yashin (@IlyaYashin) tweeted: “Incidentally, for the first time Russia has more political prisoners than Belarus.” (https://twitter.com/IlyaYashin/status/296978265971761152)