Россия: уголовное дело о клевете против Олега Орлова
(Москва) – Российские власти должны немедленно прекратить уголовное преследование руководителя правозащитного центра «Мемориал», заявила Хьюман Райтс Вотч.
Biden: Missile defense is not about Russia
Opinia.US SAN FRANCISCO — In a speech in Bucharest, Romania, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden categorically denied that President Obama’s new missile defense proposal was meant to appease Russia.
“Some — maybe even understandably — jump to the conclusion that this new missile defense approach was meant to appease Russia at the expense of Central Europe. Nothing could be further from the truth. READ MORE
Memorandum in advance of EU-Russia Human Rights Consultations
Human Rights Watch appreciates the opportunity to contribute to the ongoing preparations for the November 5-6, 2009 EU-Russia human rights consultations in Stockholm.
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Memorandum in advance of EU-Russia Human Rights Consultations
Opinia.US: Little on the White House Blog about Biden in Poland
Opinia.US SAN FRANCISCO — The White House Blog had nothing specific about Vice President Biden’s visit to Poland. Biden’s national security advisor Tony Blinken wrote a general post in the White House Blog Thursday about Mr. Biden’s visit to Central Europe. He focused, however, on his boss’s visit to Romania and posted two photos from Bucharest. READ MORE
Press Freedom Group Concerned over Europe, Welcomes U.S. Progress
The eighth annual Reporters Without Borders ranking of the state of media freedom in 175 nations and political entities shows a decline in some European countries and dramatic declines in Israel and Iran, but the organization also welcomes progress by the United States over the past year.
Unfortunately, this U.S. State Department America.gov report mentions nothing from the annual Reporters Without Borders document about the media situation in Russia.
America.gov does report that RSF said the state of press freedom in Iran is now only better than in Turkmenistan, North Korea and Eritrea, “where the media are so suppressed they are nonexistent.”
Sourced from: America.Gov Latest Items from Washington
Bearing Witness in Chechnya: The Legacy of Natalia Estemirova
PEN American Center, Human Rights Watch, the Committee to Protect Journalists, CUNY’s School of Journalism, and WITNESS present: Bearing Witness in Chechnya: The Legacy of Natalia Estemirova Featuring
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Bearing Witness in Chechnya: The Legacy of Natalia Estemirova
What an Olympic Glow can’t Mask
(Copenhagen) – Corks popped this month in Copenhagen, with Rio de Janeiro voted as host city for the 2016 Summer Games and the convening of the XIII Olympic Congress, the first since 1994. Meanwhile, in a dark cell in Fuzhou, a coastal city on the East China Sea, Ji Sizun has no cause to celebrate. The 59-year-old legal activist was sentenced to three years in prison in January. His crime? He took the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Chinese government at their word when authorities set up three official protest zones during the Beijing Games and said that any citizen could apply to protest.
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What an Olympic Glow can’t Mask
Letter to Yuri Chaika, Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation
Yuri Chaika Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation
Dear Mr. Chaika,
We are writing to express our profound concern about recent abductions and killings in Dagestan. We have been in touch with the families of six young men who were apparently abducted in September this year. Nariman Mamedyarov; Rashid Abdullaevich Gasanov; Magomed Ilyasovich Sheihov; Mirza Shakhsuvarovich Kasimov; Sirazhudin Minatulaevich Shafiev; and Sirazhutdin Radzhabovich Umarov left their homes between September 6 and September 10; three of them were later discovered killed and the fate and whereabouts of the other three remain unknown. Nariman Mamedyarov, Mirza Kasimov, and Sirazhutdin Umarov, were among those found dead with gunshot wounds after an alleged clash between law enforcement personnel and insurgents on September 11 near the village of Sirtych in the Tabasaran district of Dagestan. Their relatives, however, insist that they were not involved in insurgency.
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Letter to Yuri Chaika, Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation Regarding Recent Disappearances in Dagestan
Russia: Memorial Awarded Sakharov Prize
(Moscow) – The European Parliament has awarded its Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to Memorial, a leading Russian human rights organization and to the prominent human rights activists Ludmilla Alekseeva, Sergei Kovalev, and Oleg Orlov, and other Russian human rights defenders, Human Rights Watch said today.
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Russia: Memorial Awarded Sakharov Prize
Nobel Spotlights Need for Obama to Act on Rights
(New York) – The award of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize to US President Barack Obama should encourage him to apply his stated principles to both foreign and domestic human rights policy, Human Rights Watch said today.
Clinton on Third Anniversary of Death of Anna Politkovskaya
Comment by Free Media Online, FreeMediaOnline.org: Secretary of State Clinton’s statement on the third anniversary of the murder of Anna Politkovskaya is a positive step on the part of the Obama Administration, which has been far too tolerant of media freedom and human rights abuses in countries like Russia and China. But even this statement reflects a reluctance to admit that freedom of the press does not exist in Russia.
Secretary Clinton welcomed “calls by Russian officials defending the necessity of a free press,” but she failed to state the obvious that these calls are hollow and are contradicted by actions against free media taken almost on a daily basis by the Russian government and its proxies. While Secretary Clinton said that “the failure to bring to justice the killers of these journalists undermines efforts to strengthen the rule of law, improve government accountability, and combat corruption,” she said nothing about numerous cases of intimidation of journalists by the Russian security services and the Kremlin’s grip on all the major media outlets in the country.
Reporters Without Borders prevented from going to Moscow
By not giving them visas, the Russian authorities prevented two Reporters Without Borders representatives, including secretary-general Jean-François Julliard, from travelling to Moscow to hold a news conference there today (October 6, 2009), on the eve of the third anniversary of Novaya Gazeta reporter Anna Politkovskaya’s murder. READ MORE
IPI Delegation Raises Issues of Impunity and Self-Censorship in Russia
October 2, 2009
International Press Institute (IPI), a media freedom organisation with an almost 60-year history of defending liberty of the press, on Wednesday began a five day advocacy mission to Russia, one of the world’s most dangerous countries for journalists.
The mission began with an investigation into the events surrounding the brutal attack on a Khimki-based editor-in-chief in November 2008. READ MORE
Journalist in Russia Goes into Hiding After Receiving Threats
September 29, 2009
International Press Institute (IPI) advocacy mission arrived in Russia to discuss the state of media freedom in the country, reports emerged that Russian freelance journalist and human rights activist Alexandr Podrabinek has gone into hiding after angering members of a nationalist pro-Kremlin youth movement with an article he wrote criticising Russia’s Soviet past. READ MORE
Chechnya: president wins Estemirova “defamation” trial
Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov has won a defamation case against human rights group Memorial and its head, Oleg Orlov. But the trial has given the organisation a chance to address the injustices in the region
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Chechnya: president wins Estemirova “defamation” trial
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