Russia: rights deteriorating despite reset?

Democracy Digest from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED): “At a time when democracy remains threatened or in retreat throughout the former Soviet empire, with Russia leading the anti-democracy movement, it’s worth examining the connection between reset and democracy,” writes Fred Hiatt.

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Russia: rights deteriorating despite reset?

Russia: Human Rights Groups Call for Justice on Anniversary of Estemirova’s Murder

Human Rights Watch (HRW) – We, the undersigned, are gravely concerned about the situation of human rights defenders in the Russian Federation, including several murders targeting prominent researchers and activists for their work in the North Caucasus last year and the lack of accountability for these heinous crimes.

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Russia: Human Rights Groups Call for Justice on Anniversary of Estemirova’s Murder

Russia: investors deterred by no rule of law

Democracy Digest from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED): Russia’s leading democratic leaders and thinkers convened again last week for the sixth annual Khodorkovsky Reading, a seminar organized by the Information Science for Democracy (INDEM) think tank and the Memorial human rights group, a grantee of the National Endowment for Democracy. Few emerged impressed with President Dmitry Medvedev’s plans to modernize the country.

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Russia: investors deterred by no rule of law

NED grantee may be forced to quit Chechnya

Democracy Digest from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED): The head of one of Russia’s leading human rights groups has announced that it may be forced to end its operations in Chechnya after President Ramzan Kadyrov threatened its employees. Oleg Orlov the head of Memorial, fears that the group may be forced to leave after Kadyrov called its employees “enemies of the people, enemies of

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NED grantee may be forced to quit Chechnya

Putin is one of us, says Russia’s radical right

Democracy Digest from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED): Russia’s radical right-wing nationalists view Vladimir Putin as one of their own, according to research by the SOVA Analytic Center, a grantee of the National Endowment for Democracy. The prolific Paul Goble reports that: Many members of Russia’s radical and often violent extreme nationalist right believe that Vladimir Putin, unlike his predecessor Boris Yeltsin or successor Dmitry

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Putin is one of us, says Russia’s radical right

Russia: A Year Later, No Prosecution in Estemirova Murder

Human Rights Watch (HRW) –

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Russia: A Year Later, No Prosecution in Estemirova Murder

Kyrgyzstan: International Investigation Planned

Human Rights Watch (HRW) – (Osh) – A planned independent international commission of inquiry into the recent violence in southern Kyrgyzstan should investigate all aspects of the violence, including the role of government forces, Human Rights Watch said today.

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Kyrgyzstan: International Investigation Planned

Russia “in the vanguard” of region’s anti-democratic backlash

Democracy Digest from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED): Continuing democratic regression in the non-Baltic former Soviet Union presents a serious challenge to policymakers, according to an Obama administration official. Russia is “in the vanguard” of an anti-democratic backlash that keeps some 221 million citizens under authoritarian rule. Policymakers don’t pay as much attention to anti-democratic backsliding as they might for both psychological and methodological

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Russia “in the vanguard” of region’s anti-democratic backlash

Russia: Investigate Beating of Human Rights Lawyer

Human Rights Watch (HRW) – (Moscow) – Russian authorities should investigate the beating of a human rights lawyer by police in Dagestan and bring the perpetrators to justice, Human Rights Watch said today.

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Russia: Investigate Beating of Human Rights Lawyer

Kyrgyzstan: Security Forces Abuse Civilians

Human Rights Watch (HRW) – (Osh) – Kyrgyz troops wounded at least 20 people, two of whom died, during a security operation on June 21, 2010, in the predominantly Uzbek village of Nariman in southern Kyrgyzstan, Human Rights Watch said today. The operation followed the removal of barricades erected by the residents to protect the village.

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Kyrgyzstan: Security Forces Abuse Civilians

New threat to Russia’s dissenters

Democracy Digest from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED): Even hardened KGB operatives were unnerved by veteran dissident Lyudmila Alexeyeva: Back in the Soviet era, she would disconcert KGB officers by placidly unpacking oranges, then a rarity, while being questioned. Last New Year’s Eve, the 82-year-old dressed up as Snegurochka — Father Christmas’ granddaughter according to Russian fairy tales — in order to dodge a

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New threat to Russia’s dissenters

Russia: Reverse Conviction of Human Rights Defender

Human Rights Watch (HRW) – (Moscow) – The Russian authorities should free the human rights defender Aleksei Sokolov and carry out an independent and effective investigation into the miscarriage of justice that led to his incarceration, Human Rights Watch said today.

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Russia: Reverse Conviction of Human Rights Defender

Address to President Medvedev Regarding the Human Rights Situation in the North Caucasus

Human Rights Watch (HRW) – Dear Mr. President, Human Rights Watch wholeheartedly welcomes your initiative to meet with the Presidential Civil Society Council and independent experts to discuss pressing human rights issues in the North Caucasus

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Address to President Medvedev Regarding the Human Rights Situation in the North Caucasus

“The Katyn Problem in Contemporary Russia” | Memorial

Professor Aleksandr Guryanov’s presentation [translated from Russian] from the Katyn observances at the Coolidge Auditorium of the Library of Congress, May 5, 2010.

This is sent with permission of Professor Mark Kramer [translator] and the Harvard University Cold War Archives. It can be reprinted or reposted with acknowledgment.

“The Katyn Problem in Contemporary Russia”

Aleksandr Guryanov, “Memorial” Society

Esteemed Mr. Chairman and Ladies and Gentlemen:

First of all I would like to offer my sincere thanks to the organizers for
inviting me to this conference marking the seventieth anniversary of the Katyn crime and for giving me the honor of speaking to you as a
representative of the Russian “Memorial” Society.

The Memorial Society, in addition to its work in defending human rights in Russia in our own time, pursues the study of the history of political repression in the Soviet Union, documenting the fate of repressed people and assisting their moral and legal rehabilitation. READ MORE

VOA launches Digital Frontiers web project

FreeMediaOnline.org & Free Media Online Blog, May 06, 2010, San Francisco — Dr. Kim Andrew Elliott reported the launch of a new Voice of America digital freedom web page. Dr. Elliott is an employee the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which manages VOA. He edits his own international media news website, Kim Andrew Elliott on International Broadcasting, which he claims is not connected with the BBG.

On its lauch day, Voice of America Digital Frontiers has posted a link to FreeMediaOnline.org report Voice of America Russian Service LiveJournal Website Under Porn Attack with the following comment: “just in time for Digital Frontiers to launch? Yipes!”

FreeMediaOnline.org has been critical of the BBG’s decisions to terminate VOA radio and TV services and to steer funding to private Internet contractors who have made VOA websites more vulnerable to cyber attacks. Voice of America Russian Service radio broadcasts were silenced by the BBG just 12 days before the Russian military attack on Georgia in August 2008.

At the time, BBG officials claimed that VOA Russian Service will be able to reach a vast Internet audience in Russia. But the number of visitors to VOA Russian Service website has been in low thousands and its total audience reach in Russia has dramatically declined since the BBG’s decision to stop most VOA Russian-language radio and TV broadcasts.

The BBG and VOA executives ignored warnings that their Internet-only strategy undermines the potential impact of US-funded international broadcasting as a tool in defense of freedom of expression in countries like Russia and exposes the Voice of America to crippling cyber attacks. VOA’s main websites were successfully hacked and out of commission for at least two days during President Obama’s first official visit to Moscow. BBG executives were also responsible for the decision to place the VOA Russian Service Blog on the LiveJournal platform

News item from Kim Andrew Elliott on International Broadcasting website:

Digital Frontiers is a new VOA web section, with video introduction by VOA director Dan Austin, that deals with things digital, cyber, virtual, mobile, etc., including the censorship and efforts to overcome the censorship of digital content. The hard launch is today, 6 May, but as of this typing there still is no link to the site from the voanews.com home page. The short URL is www.voanews.com/digitalfrontiers.

VOA press release, 5 May 2010: “VOA Director Danforth Austin says, ‘We hope to make Digital Frontiers a global resource for those interested in online freedom and to expand this online project into broadcasts, seminars and other outreach.’ ‘Wherever you live, you have something to teach the world,’ Austin says, and ‘with ‘Digital Frontiers’ we’ll tell your story, and share it with the world.’”