Search results
On 13 July 2022, the United Nations’ human rights experts condemned Russia’s continued and heightened crackdown on civil society groups, human rights defenders and media outlets. Most independent Russian media outlets were closed down to avoid prosecution, or had been blocked along with dozens of foreign media.
The report documents how Russian authorities cracked down on dissent, freedom of expression, and human rights groups amid the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It also exposes the abuses by the Wagner mercenary group, the arrest warrants for Putin and Lvova-Belova, and the deportation of Ukrainian children.
The report documents how authorities targeted independent voices, human rights defenders, journalists, and political opponents with new laws, prosecutions, and repression. It covers the cases of Navalny, foreign agents, undesirable organizations, and freedom of expression in Russia.
Sep 21, 2023 · Mariana Katzarova, the UN Special Rapporteur for Russia, warns of a pattern of suppression of civil and political rights since the invasion of Ukraine. She cites mass arbitrary arrests, torture, lack of judicial independence and closure of civic space in her report to the Human Rights Council.
- Covid-19 Response
- Freedom of Expression
- Freedom of Assembly
- Human Rights Defenders
- Freedom of Association
- Chechnya
- Counterterrorism
- Right to Asylum, Prohibition of Refoulement
- Environment and Human Rights
- Nondiscrimination, National Minorities, Xenophobia
- GeneratedCaptionsTabForHeroSec
In April, new harsher penalties were introduced for spreading information, including about the epidemic, deemed to be false, ranging from fines to three years’ imprisonment. Within three months, according to one estimate, authorities opened at least 170 administrative and 42 criminal cases for allegedly spreading false information online about Covi...
In several cases, authorities resorted to wrongful prosecutions against journalists on terrorism and treason-related charges and other tactics aimed at interfering with their journalistic work. In July, journalist Svetlana Prokopyeva was sentenced to a hefty fine on bogus terrorism charges for arguing that Russia’s repressive policies on speech and...
Using Covid-19 as a pretext, the authorities banned all mass gatherings. Police interfered with single-person protests, which do not require approval, in some cases referring to the social distancing and mandatory mask regime even when protesters wore masks. Authorities prosecuted single-person picketers, alleging they were part of a “mass protest....
In July, police indicted human rights lawyer Semyon Simonov, holding him personally accountable for an unpaid fine issued against his human rights organization over alleged non-compliance with Russia’s abusive “foreign agents” law. Also in July, a court sentenced human rights historian, Yuri Dmitriev, to three-and-a-half years’ imprisonment on appa...
Russian authorities raided the offices of independent groups under various pretexts and targeted their staff and affiliates, including under the “foreign agents” and “undesirable foreign organizations” laws. Courts found Maxim Vernikov and Yana Antonova guilty of involvement with an “undesirable organization” and sentenced them to several hundred h...
Chechnya’s leadership continued its onslaught on all forms of dissent and criticism. In February, a group of thugs violently attacked human rights lawyer Marina Dubrovina and investigative journalist Elena Milashina shortly after a court hearing against Dubrovina’s client, a blogger who had criticized the opulent lifestyle of Chechnya’s governor, R...
Courts issued guilty verdicts in several terrorism or extremism cases marred by allegations of torture, dubious expert analysis, and reliance on secret witnesses. In December 2019, 11 people were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 19 years to life over the 2017 St. Petersburg metro bombing. Russian authorities never investigated credible compla...
In July and September, authorities forcibly removed at least four asylum seekers to Tajikistan and Uzbekistan despite the risk of torture, pending appeals of their rejected asylum claims, and injunctions against their removal issued by the European Court on Human Rights (ECtHR). At time of writing, at least 39 current or rejected asylum seekers rem...
In May, a subsidiary of Russian mining giant Nornickel spilled over 20,000 tons of diesel fuel in Russia’s Arctic, contaminating 180,000 square meters of land before reaching nearby rivers. Two days after the incident, Nornickel publicly acknowledged the spill. Rosprirodnadzor, the government’s natural resource management agency, sued Nornickel for...
The Black Lives Matter protests in the US following the murder of George Floyd sparked debate in the Russian press and social media about racism and discrimination in the country. A biracial Russian vlogger who discussed racism and racist violence in Russia faced threats and online bullying. Authorities responded by cautioning her against “spreadin...
The report documents how the Covid-19 pandemic and the constitutional reform provided pretexts for Russian authorities to restrict human rights in many areas, and to introduce new restrictions, especially over privacy rights. It also covers the crackdown on dissenting voices, the poisoning of Alexei Navalny, and the shrinking space for civic activism.
RUSSIA 2021 HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY. The Russian Federation has a highly centralized, authoritarian political system dominated by President Vladimir Putin.
Apr 19, 2024 · Amnesty International reports on the deteriorating human rights situation in Russia, including war crimes, repression, torture, and discrimination. Learn about the latest news, urgent actions, research, and campaigns on Russia.
