human rights in Russia

Human rights in Russia have routinely been criticized by international organizations and independent domestic media outlets. Some of the most commonly cited violations include deaths in custody, the widespread and systematic use of torture by security forces and prison guards, hazing rituals (known as ''dedovshchina'', meaning "reign of grandfathers") in the Russian Army, widespread violations of children's rights, violence and discrimination against ethnic minorities, and the killing of journalists. (As of 9 July 2009).

As a successor state of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation remains bound by the same human rights agreements that were signed and ratified by its predecessor, such as the international covenants on civil and political rights as well as economic, social, and cultural rights. In the late 1990s, Russia also ratified the European Convention on Human Rights (with reservations) and from 1998 onwards the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg became a last court of appeal for Russian citizens from their national system of justice. According to Chapter 1, Article 15 of the 1993 Constitution, these embodiments of international law take precedence over national federal legislation.The Constitution of the Russian Federation should not to be confused with its national legislation.

As a former member of the Council of Europe and a signatory of the European Convention on Human Rights, Russia had international obligations related to the issue of human rights. In the introduction to the 2004 report on the situation in Russia, the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe noted the "sweeping changes since the collapse of the Soviet Union undeniable".

However, from Vladimir Putin's second term as President (2004–2008) onward there were increasing reports of human rights violations. Since the 2011 State Duma elections and Putin's resumption of the presidency in spring 2012, there has been a legislative onslaught on many international and constitutional rights, e.g. Article 20 (Freedom of Assembly and Association) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is embodied in Articles 30 and 31 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation (1993). A law was passed in December 2015 that gives the Constitutional Court of Russia the right to decide whether Russia can enforce, or ignore, resolutions from intergovernmental bodies such as the European Court of Human Rights. From 16 March 2022 Russia is no more a member state of the Council of Europe.

Background

The Putin presidency

Ratings

During Putin's first term as President (2000–2004), Freedom House rated Russia as "partially free" with poor scores of 5 on both political rights and civil liberties (1 being most free, and 7 least free). In the period from 2005 to 2008, Freedom House rated Russia as "not free" with scores of 6 for political rights and 5 for civil liberties according to its Freedom in the World reports.

In 2006, ''The Economist'' published a democracy rating, which placed Russia at 102nd among 167 countries and defined it as a "hybrid regime with a trend towards curtailment of media and other civil liberties".

According to the Human Rights Watch 2016 report, the human rights situation in the Russian Federation continues to deteriorate.

By 2016, four years into Putin's third term as president, the Russian Federation had sunk further on the Freedom House rating:

e Kremlin continued a crackdown on civil society, ramping up pressure on domestic nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and branding the U.S.-based National Endowment for Democracy and two groups backed by billionaire philanthropist George Soros as 'undesirable organizations'. The regime also intensified its tight grip on the media, saturating the information landscape with nationalist propaganda while suppressing the most popular alternative voices.

Reportedly in 2019, with France and Germany’s constant efforts in saving Moscow from being expelled from the Europe's human rights watchdog, Russia might retain its seat if it resumes its membership fees payment.

Overview of issues

International monitors and domestic observers have listed numerous, often deeply-rooted problems in the country and, with their advocacy, citizens have directed a flood of complaints to the European Court of Human Rights since 1998. By 1 June 2007, 22.5% of its pending cases were complaints against the Russian Federation by its citizens. This proportion had risen steadily since 2002 as in 2006 there were 151 admissible applications against Russia (out of 1,634 for all the countries) while in 2005 it was 110 (of 1,036), in 2004 it was 64 (of 830), in 2003 it was 15 (of 753) and in 2002 it was 12 (of 578).

Chechnya posed a separate problem and during the Second Chechen War, which lasted from September 1999 to 2005, there were numerous instances of summary execution and forced disappearance of civilians there. According to the ombudsman of the Chechen Republic, Nurdi Nukhazhiyev, the most complex and painful problem as of March 2007 was to trace over 2,700 abducted and forcefully held citizens; analysis of the complaints of citizens of Chechnya shows that social problems were ever more frequently coming to the foreground; two years earlier, he said, complaints mostly concerned violations of the right to life.

NGOs

The Federal Law of 10 January 2006 changed the rules affecting registration and operation of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Russia.Russian language version
The Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, among others, was closed. A detailed report by Olga Gnezdilova demonstrated that small, genuinely volunteer organisations were disproportionately hit by the demands of the new procedures: for the time being, larger NGOs with substantial funding were not affected.

Following Putin's re-election in May 2012 for a third term as president, a new Federal Law was passed, requiring all NGOs in receipt of foreign funding and "engaged in political activities" to register as "foreign agents" with the RF Ministry of Justice. By September 2016 144 NGOs were listed on the Register, including many of the oldest, most well-known and respected organisations, both internationally and domestically.
Government can brand NGOs as "undesirable" to fine and shut them down. Members of "undesirable organisations" can be fined and imprisoned.

These restrictive policies (Russian funders were also deterred) were a denial of the Freedom of Association embodied in Article 30 of the 1993 Constitution of the Russian Federation.

Assassinations

The deepest concern was reserved for the periodic unsolved assassinations of leading opposition politicians, lawmakers, journalists, and critics of the government, at home and sometimes abroad. According to a BuzzFeed News report in 2017, current and former US and UK intelligence agents told the outlet that they believe that Russian assassins, possibly on government orders, could be linked to 14 deaths on British soil that were dismissed as not suspicious by police.

In 1998, human rights advocate Galina Starovoitova was shot dead in St. Petersburg at the entrance of her apartment. In 2003, Yuri Schekochikhin mysteriously died from illness, causing speculation into his death, such as poisoning. In 2003, the liberal politician Sergei Yushenkov was shot dead. In 2006, Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned with polonium and died. A British inquiry concluded that President Putin had "probably" approved his murder. In 2006, investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya was shot dead. In 2009, human rights advocate Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova were shot dead in Moscow. In 2015, opposition politician Boris Nemtsov was shot dead near the Kremlin. In 2017, journalist Nikolay Andrushchenko was beaten to death.

The only deaths, in the view of Russian observers, to be convincingly investigated and successfully prosecuted, were the 2010 killings of Markelov and Baburova and the 2004 murder of anthropologist Nikolai Girenko, both the work of right-wing extremists. The perpetrators of certain other killings have been charged and convicted: since 1999 none of the instigators, the men who ordered the killing, have been identified or brought to justice.

Political prisoners

The right to a fair trial and freedom from political or religious persecution has been violated ever more frequently over the past decade.

The numbers reliably considered to be political prisoners have risen sharply in the last four years. In May 2016, the Memorial Human Rights Centre put the total at 89. By May 2017, Memorial considered there were at least 117 political prisoners or prisoners of conscience (66 accused of belonging to the Muslim organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami which has been banned in Russia since 2010). Among these prisoners is also human rights defender Emir-Usein Kuku from Crimea who was accused of belonging to Hizb ut-Tahrir although he denies any involvement in this organization. Amnesty International has called for his immediate liberation.

At various times those imprisoned have included human rights defenders, journalists like Mikhail Trepashkin, and scientists such as Valentin Danilov. Since 2007, loosely-worded laws against "extremism" or "terrorism" have been used to incarcerate the often youthful activists who have protested in support of freedom of assembly, against the alleged mass falsification of elections in 2011 and, since 2014, against the occupation of Crimea, the conflict in eastern Ukraine and corruption in the highest echelons of the government and State. Political prisoners are often subjected to torture in prisons and penal colonies.

On 10 May 2014, Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov was arrested in Simferopol, Crimea. He was taken to Russia, where he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for alleged terrorist activities. Amnesty International considered the trial unfair and called for the release of Sentsov. Human Rights Watch described the trial as a political show trial calling for the liberation of the filmmaker. On 7 September 2019 Sentsov was released in a prisoner swap.

In May 2018 Server Mustafayev, the founder and coordinator of the human rights movement Crimean Solidarity was imprisoned by Russian authorities and charged with "membership of a terrorist organisation". Amnesty International and Front Line Defenders demand his immediate release.

There were cases of attacks on demonstrators organized by local authorities.

With the passing of time some of these prisoners have been released or, like Igor Sutyagin, exchanged with other countries for Russian agents held abroad. Nevertheless, the numbers continue to mount. According to some organisations there are now more than 300 individuals who have either been sentenced to terms of imprisonment in Russia, or are currently detained awaiting trial (in custody or under home arrest), or have fled abroad or gone into hiding, because of persecution for their beliefs and their attempts to exercise their rights under the Russian Constitution and international agreements.

In April 2019, an Israeli citizen who carried 9.6 grams of hashish was detained in Russia and sentenced to more than seven years in prison in October 2019. This sentence had political reasons. She was pardoned in January 2020.

On 22 June 2020, Human Rights Organization along with Amnesty International wrote a joint-letter to the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, Igor Viktorovich Krasnov. In their letter, they asked for the release of six human rights defender who were convicted and sentenced in November 2019 to prison terms ranging from seven to 19 years on groundless terror-related charges.

On 17 January 2021, Amnesty International declared Alexei Navalny to be a prisoner of conscience following his detention after returning to Russia and called on the Russian authorities to release him.

As of June 2020, per Memorial Human Rights Center, there were 380 political prisoners in Russia, including 63 individuals prosecuted, directly or indirectly, for political activities (including Alexey Navalny) and 245 prosecuted for their involvement with one of the Muslim organizations that are banned in Russia. 78 individuals on the list, i.e. more than 20% of the total, are residents of Crimea.

Russia has been accused of hostage diplomacy and has exchanged prisoners with the United States.

Judicial system

The judiciary of Russia is subject to manipulation by political authorities according to Amnesty International. According to Constitution of Russia, top judges are appointed by the Federation Council, following nomination by the President of Russia. Anna Politkovskaya described in her book '' Putin's Russia'' stories of judges who did not follow "orders from the above" and were assaulted or removed from their positions. In an open letter written in 2005, former judge Olga Kudeshkina criticized the chairman of the Moscow city court O. Egorova for "''recommending'' judges to make ''right'' decisions" which allegedly caused more than 80 judges in Moscow to retire in the period from 2002 to 2005.

In the 1990s, Russia's prison system was widely reported by media and human rights groups as troubled. There were large case backlogs and trial delays, resulting in lengthy pre-trial detention. Prison conditions were viewed as well below international standards. Tuberculosis was a serious, pervasive problem. Human rights groups estimated that about 11,000 inmates and prison detainees die annually, most because of overcrowding, disease, and lack of medical care.Russia - Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, February 23, 2001 A media report dated 2006 points to a campaign of prison reform that has resulted in apparent improvements in conditions. The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation has been working to reform Russia's prisons since 1997, in concert with reform efforts by the national government.

The rule of law has made very limited inroads in the criminal justice since the Soviet time, especially in the deep provinces.
The courts generally follow the non-acquittals policy; in 2004 acquittals constituted only 0.7 percent of all judgments. Judges are dependent on administrators, bidding prosecutorial offices in turn. The work of public prosecutors varies from poor to dismal. Lawyers are mostly court appointed and low paid. There was a rapid deterioration of the situation characterized by abuse of the criminal process, harassment and persecution of defense bar members in politically sensitive cases in recent years. The principles of adversariness and equality of the parties to criminal proceedings are not observed.

In 1996, President Boris Yeltsin pronounced a moratorium on the death penalty in Russia. However, the Russian government still violates many promises it made upon entering the Council of Europe. According to Politkovskaya, citizens who appeal to European Court of Human Rights are often prosecuted by Russian authorities.

The court system has been widely used to suppress political opposition as in the cases of Pussy Riot, Alexei Navalny, Zarema Bagavutdinova, and Vyacheslav Maltsev and to block candidatures of Kremlin's political enemies.

A 2019 report by Zona Prava NGO titled "Violence by Security Forces: Crime Without Punishment" highlighted disproportionately large number of acquittals and dropped cases against law enforcement officers when compared to overall rate of acquittals in Russian courts. The latter is only 0.43%, while in case of law enforcement and military officials accused of violent abuse of power, including ending in death of the suspect, it's almost 4%. At the same time those convicted also receive disproportionately lenient convictions - almost half of them were suspended sentences or fines.

In 2021 a massive cache of videos from Russian prisons and penal colonies were published by NGO ''Gulagu.net'' with thousands of hours of first-hand recordings of torture of inmates by prison officials, involving rape and other forms of sexual assault like penetration with sticks. The videos cover years 2015-2020 and were exfiltrated by a former inmate Sergei Savelyev who was put in charge of the video recording system prison authorities as an IT specialist. Russian authorities fired a few prison officials incriminated in these videos and also placed Savelyev on wanted list for "illegally accessing sensitive information". The abuse was described as part of systematic and countrywide technique for extortion of money and false witness statements by the FSB and law enforcement.

Torture and abuse

The Constitution of Russia forbids arbitrary detention, torture and ill-treatment. Chapter 2, Article 21 of the constitution states, "No one may be subjected to torture, violence or any other harsh or humiliating treatment or punishment." However, in practice, Russian police, Federal Security Service and prison and jail guards are regularly observed practicing torture with impunity - including beatings with many different types of batons, sticks and truncheons, water battles, sacks with sand etc., the "Elephant Method" which is beating a victim wearing a gas mask with cut airflow and the "Supermarket Method" which is the same but with a plastic bag on head, electric shocks including to genitals, nose, and ears (known as " Phone call to Putin"), binding in stress positions, cigarette burns, needles and electric needles hammered under nails, prolonged suspension, sleep deprivation, food deprivation, rape, penetration with foreign objects, asphyxiation - in interrogating arrested suspects.
Another torture method is the "Television" which involves forcing the victim to stand in a mid-squat with extended arms in front of them holding a stool or even two stools, with the seat facing them. Former serviceman Andrei Sychev had to have both legs and genitals amputated after this torture due to gangrene caused by cut bloodflow. Other torture methods include the "Rack" or "Stretch" which involves hanging a victim on hands tied behind the back, the "Refrigerator" which involves subjecting a naked victim sometimes doused in cold water to subzero temperatures, the "Furnace" where the victim is left in heat in a small space and "Chinese torture" where the feet of the victim laying on a tabletop are beaten with clubs.
In 2000, human rights Ombudsman Oleg Mironov estimated that 50% of prisoners with whom he spoke claimed to have been tortured. Amnesty International reported that Russian military forces in Chechnya engage in torture.

Torture at police stations, jails, prisons and penal colonies is common and widespread. Doctors and nurses sometimes also take part in torturing and beating prisoners and suspects.

Russian police is known to be using torture as a means to extract forced confessions of guilt.

Sometimes police or jail guards employ trusted inmates to beat, torture, and rape suspects in order to force confessions of guilt. This torture method is called "Pressing Room" or "Press Hut". Those trustees receive special prison privileges for torturing other prisoners.

In the most extreme cases, hundreds of innocent people from the street were arbitrarily arrested, beaten, tortured, and raped by special police forces. Such incidents took place not only in Chechnya, but also in Russian towns of Blagoveshensk, Bezetsk, Nefteyugansk, and others. In 2007 Radio Svoboda ("Radio Freedom", part of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty) reported that an unofficial movement "Russia the Beaten" was created in Moscow by human rights activists and journalists who "suffered from beatings in numerous Russian cities".

In June 2013, construction worker Martiros Demerchyan claimed that he was tortured by Sochi police. Demerchyan, who spent seven weeks constructing housing for the 2014 Winter Olympics, was accused by his supervisor of stealing wiring. Demerchyan denied the allegations but when the victim returned to work to collect his pay, he was met by several police officers who beat him all night, breaking two of his teeth and sexually assaulted him with a crow bar. He was treated in hospital, but doctors told his family they had found no serious injuries on his body.

Torture and humiliation are also widespread in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. The term dedovshchina refers to systematic abuse of new conscripts by more long-serving soldiers.The Consequences of Dedovshchina
Human Rights Watch report, 2004 Many young men are killed, raped or commit suicide every year because of it. It is reported that some young male conscripts are forced to work as prostitutes for "outside clients". Union of the Committees of Soldiers' Mothers of Russia works to protect rights of young soldiers.

The current phenomenon of dedovschina is closely linked to the division of Soviet and now Russian junior soldiers into four 'classes,' each reflecting a group called up every six months for a total two-year service period. This system stemmed from the adoption of two-year service in 1967. The reduction in the term of service to one year and the increasing number of contract servicemen in the Armed Forces may change the character of dedovschina somewhat.

Crime

In the 1990s, the growth of organized crime (''see'' Russian mafia and Russian oligarchs) and the fragmentation and corruption of law enforcement agencies in Russia coincided with a sharp rise in violence against business figures, administrative and state officials, and other public figures. The second President of Russia Vladimir Putin inherited these problems when he took office, and during his election campaign in 2000, the new president won popular support by stressing the need to restore law and order and to bring the rule of law to Russia as the only way of restoring confidence in the country's economy.

According to data by Demoscope Weekly, the Russian homicide rate showed a rise from the level of 15 murders per 100,000 people in 1991, to 32.5 in 1994. Then it fell to 22.5 in 1998, followed by a rise to a maximum rate of 30.5 in 2002, and then a fall to 20 murders per 100,000 people in 2006. Despite positive tendency to reduce, Russia's index of murders per capita remains one of the highest in the world with the fifth highest of 62 nations.

With a prison population rate of 611 per 100,000 population, Russia was second only to the United States (2006 data). Furthermore, criminology studies show that for the first five years since 2000 compared with the average for 1992 to 1999, the rate of robberies is up by 38.2% and the rate of drug-related crimes is higher by 71.7%.

Domestic violence

Russia has a high rate of domestic violence compared to other European countries like the UK. Russia decriminalized first-offense domestic violence in 2017, making the maximum penalty an administrative fine for an injury that did not result in hospitalization. Victims describe difficulties in getting protection from police that have resulted in severe mutilation or death, and cultural conservatism which considers domestic violence a family rather than a government matter, and denies the concept of marital rape. The Russian Orthodox Church helped defeat a 2019 bill that would have introduced restraining orders for the first time in Russia, and adding prison sentences for first-offence domestic abuse. The church called the law "antifamily" and blamed it on "radical feminist ideology".

During the COVID-19 pandemic in Russia, some women were fined for breaking quarantine rules when they fled their abuses, leading to changes in the regulations. In 2020, the government cut funding for anti-domestic violence efforts by 88% from the previous year. Any anti-domestic violence organization that receives international funding is subject to registration with the government and must label all of its materials "foreign agent". The advertising agency Room 485 in 2020 launched a campaign against the popular sentiment "if he beats you, it means he loves you".

Political freedom

Elections

Russia held elections on 4 December 2011. European Parliament called for new free and fair elections and an immediate and full investigation of all reports of fraud. According to MEPs Russia did not meet election standards as defined by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). The preliminary findings of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) report on procedural violations, lack of media impartiality, harassment of independent monitors and lack of separation between party and state.

Persecution of scientists

There were several cases where the FSB accused scientists of allegedly revealing state secrets to foreign nationals, while the defendants and their colleagues claimed that the information or technology was based on already published and declassified sources. Even though the cases often garnered public reaction, the cases themselves were in most cases held in closed chambers, with no press coverage or public oversight.

The scientists in question are:
* Igor Sutyagin (sentenced to 15 years).
* Evgeny Afanasyev and Svyatoslav Bobyshev, (sentenced to 12 and a half and 12 years).
* Scientist Igor Reshetin and his associates at the Russian rocket and space researcher TsNIIMash-Export.
* Physicist Valentin Danilov (sentenced to 14 years).
* Physical chemist Oleg Korobeinichev (held under a written pledge not to leave city from 2006. In May 2007 the case against him was closed by FSB for "absence of body of crime". In July 2007 prosecutors publicly apologized to Korobeinichev for "the image of spy").
* Academic Oskar Kaibyshev (given a 6-year suspended sentence and a fine of $132,000).

Ecologist and journalist Alexander Nikitin, who worked with the Bellona Foundation, was likewise accused of espionage. He published material exposing hazards posed by the Russian Navy's nuclear fleet. He was acquitted in 1999 after spending several years in prison (his case was sent for re-investigation 13 times while he remained in prison). Other cases of prosecution are the cases of investigative journalist and ecologist Grigory Pasko, sentenced to three years' imprisonment and later released under a general amnesty, Vladimir Petrenko who described dangers posed by military chemical warfare stockpiles and was held in pretrial confinement for seven months, and Nikolay Shchur, chairman of the Snezhinskiy Ecological Fund who was held in pretrial confinement for six months.

Viktor Orekhov, a former KGB captain who assisted Soviet dissidents and was sentenced to eight years of prison in the Soviet era, was sentenced in 1995 to three years of prison for alleged possession of a pistol and magazines. After one year he was released and left the country.

Vil Mirzayanov was prosecuted for a 1992 article in which he has claimed that Russia was working on chemical weapons of mass destruction, but won the case and later emigrated to the United States

Vladimir Kazantsev who disclosed illegal purchases of eavesdropping devices from foreign firms was arrested in August 1995, and released at the end of the year, however the case was not closed. Investigator Mikhail Trepashkin was sentenced in May 2004 to four years of prison.

On 9 January 2006, journalist Vladimir Rakhmankov was sentenced for alleged defamation of the President in his article "Putin as phallic symbol of Russia" to fine of 20,000 roubles (abou
695 USD
.

Political dissidents from the former Soviet republics, such as authoritarian Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, are often arrested by the FSB and extradited to these countries for prosecution, despite the protests from international human rights organizations. The special security services of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan also kidnap people in Russian territory, with the implicit approval of the FSB.

Many people were also held in detention to prevent them from demonstrating during the G8 Summit in 2006.

Business-related human rights abuses

There has been a number of high-profile cases of human rights abuses connected to business in Russia. Among other abuses, this most obviously involves abuse of article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. These include the case of the former heads of the oil company Yukos, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and Platon Lebedev whom Amnesty International declared prisoners of conscience, and the case of the lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, whose efforts to expose a conspiracy of criminals and corrupt law-enforcement officials earned him sustained abuse in prison which led to his death. An analogous case was the death in custody of the businesswoman Vera Trifonova, who was in jail for alleged fraud. Cases such as these have contributed to suspicion in other countries about the Russian justice system, which has manifested itself in the refusal to grant Russian extradition requests for businessmen fleeing abroad. Notable instances of this are the cases of the tycoon Boris Berezovsky and former Yukos vice president Alexander Temerko in the UK, the media magnate Vladimir Gusinsky in Spain and Greece, Leonid Nevzlin in Israel and Ivan Kolesnikov in Cyprus. A case that will test the attitude of the French authorities to this issue is that of the shipping magnate Vitaly Arkhangelsky. The WikiLeaks revelations indicated the low level of confidence other governments have in the Russian government on such issues. Cases involving major companies may gain coverage in the world media, but there are many further cases equally worthy of attention: a typical case involves the expropriation of assets, with criminals and corrupt law-enforcement officials collaborating to bring false charges against businesspeople, who are told that they must hand over assets to avoid criminal proceedings against them. A prominent campaigner against such abuses is Yana Yakovleva, herself a victim who set up the group Business Solidarity in the aftermath of her ordeal.

Suspicious killings

Some Russian opposition lawmakers and investigative journalists are suspected to be assassinated while investigating corruption and alleged crimes conducted by state authorities or FSB: Sergei Yushenkov, Yuri Shchekochikhin, Alexander Litvinenko, Galina Starovoitova, Anna Politkovskaya, Paul Klebnikov.

USA and UK intelligence services believe Russian government and secret services are behind at least fourteen targeted killings on British soil.

Situation in Chechnya

The Russian Government's policies in Chechnya are a cause of international concern. It has been reported that Russian military forces have abducted, tortured, and killed numerous civilians in Chechnya, but Chechen separatists have also committed abuses and acts of terrorism, such as abducting people for ransom and bombing Moscow metro stations. Human rights groups are critical of cases of people disappearing in the custody of Russian officials. Systematic illegal arrests and torture conducted by the armed forces under the command of Ramzan Kadyrov and Federal Ministry of Interior have also been reported. There are reports about repressions, information blockade, and atmosphere of fear and despair in Chechnya.

According to Memorial reports, there is a system of "conveyor of violence" in Chechen Republic, as well as in neighbouring Ingushetiya. People are suspected in crimes connected with activity of separatists squads, are unlawfully detained by members of security agencies, and then disappear. After a while some detainees are found in preliminary detention centers, while some allegedly disappear forever, and some are tortured to confess to a crime or/and to slander somebody else. Psychological pressure is also in use. Known Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya compared this system with Gulag and claimed the number of several hundred cases.

A number of journalists were killed in Chechnya purportedly for reporting on the conflict. List of names includes less and more famous: Cynthia Elbaum, Vladimir Zhitarenko, Nina Yefimova, Jochen Piest, Farkhad Kerimov, Natalya Alyakina, Shamkhan Kagirov, Viktor Pimenov, Nadezhda Chaikova, Supian Ependiyev, Ramzan Mezhidov and Shamil Gigayev, Vladimir Yatsina, Aleksandr Yefremov, Roddy Scott, Paul Klebnikov, Magomedzagid Varisov, Natalya Estemirova and Anna Politkovskaya.

As reported by the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe Thomas Hammarberg in 2009, "prior military conflicts, recurrent terrorist attacks (including suicide bombings), as well as widespread corruption and a climate of impunity have all plagued the region."

According to the Human Rights Centre Memorial, the total number of alleged abductions in Chechnya was 42 during the entire year 2008, whereas already in the first four months of 2009 there were 58 such cases. Of these 58 persons, 45 had been released, 2 found dead, 4 were missing and 7 had been found in police detention units. In the course of 2008, 164 criminal complaints concerning acts by the security forces were made, 111 of which were granted. In the first half of 2009, 52 such complaints were made, 18 of which were granted.

On 16 April 2009 the counter-terrorism operation (CTO) regime in Chechnya was lifted by the federal authorities. After that, the Chechen authorities bear primary responsibility for the fight against terrorism in the Republic. However, the lifting of the CTO regime has not been accompanied by a diminishment of activity of illegal armed groups in Chechnya.REPORT by Thomas Hammarberg
Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, following his visit to the Russian Federation, (Chechen Republic and the Republic of Ingushetia) on 2–11 September 2009

There are reports on practices of collective punishment of relatives of alleged terrorists or insurgents: punitive house-burning has continued to be among the tactics against families of alleged insurgents. Chechen authorities confirmed such incidents and pointed out that "such practices were difficult to prevent as they stemmed from prevalent customs of revenge", however, educational efforts are undertaken to prevent such incidents, with the active involvement of village elders and Muslim clerics, and compensation had been paid to many of the victims of punitive house burnings.

Current situation

There are gay concentration camps in Chechnya where homosexuals are tortured and executed. In September 2017 Tatyana Moskalkova, an official representative of government on human rights, met with Chechnen authorities to discuss a list of 31 people recently extrajudicially killed in the republic.

Governmental organizations

Efforts to institutionalize official human rights bodies have been mixed. In 1996, human rights activist Sergei Kovalev resigned as chairman of the Presidential Human Rights Commission to protest the government's record, particularly the war in Chechnya. Parliament in 1997 passed a law establishing a "human rights ombudsman," a position that is provided for in Russia's constitution and is required of members of the Council of Europe, to which Russia was admitted in February 1996. The State Duma finally selected Duma deputy Oleg Mironov in May 1998. A member of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Mironov resigned from both the Party and the Duma after the vote, citing the law's stipulation that the Ombudsman be nonpartisan. Because of his party affiliation, and because Mironov had no evident expertise in the field of human rights, his appointment was widely criticized at the time by human rights activists.

Non-governmental organizations

See also: '' Russian foreign agent law'', ''Russian undesirable organizations law''

The lower house of the Russian parliament passed a bill by 370-18 requiring local branches of foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to re-register as Russian organizations subject to Russian jurisdiction, and thus stricter financial and legal restrictions. The bill gives Russian officials oversight of local finances and activities. The bill has been highly criticized by Human Rights Watch, Memorial organization, and the INDEM Foundation for its possible effects on international monitoring of the status of human rights in Russia. In October 2006 the activities of many foreign non-governmental organizations were suspended using this law; officials said that "the suspensions resulted simply from the failure of private groups to meet the law's requirements, not from a political decision on the part of the state. The groups would be allowed to resume work once their registrations are completed." Another crackdown followed in 2007.

The year 2015 saw the dissolution of several NGOs following their registration as foreign agents under the 2012 Russian foreign agent law and the shutdown of NGOs under the 2015 Russian undesirable organizations law.

In March 2016, Russia announced the closure of the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Moscow.

Freedom of religion

The Constitution of Russian Federation provides for freedom of religion and the equality of all religions before the law as well as the separation of church and state. Vladimir Lukin claimed in his 2005 Ombudsman's report that "the Russian state has achieved significant progress in the observance of religious freedom and lawful activity of religious associations, overcoming a heritage of totalitarianism, domination of a single ideology and party dictatorship."Russian language version
However, reports of religious abuse continue to come out of Russia. According to International Christian Concern, during 2021 "crackdowns on religious freedom have intensified in Russia." During June 2021, Forum 18 highlighted that "twice as many prisoners of conscience are serving sentences or are in detention awaiting appeals for exercising freedom of religion or belief as in November 2020." Many religious scholars and human right organizations have recently spoken up about the abuses taking place in Russia against minorities. The U.S. State Department considers Russia one of the worlds' "worst violators" of religious freedom.

Alvaro Gil-Robles emphasized the amount of state support provided by both federal and regional authorities varies for the different religious communities. In harmony with that, Catholics are not always heeded as well as other religions by federal and local authorities.

Vladimir Lukin noted back in 2005, that citizens of Russia rarely experience violations of freedom of conscience (guaranteed by the article 28 of the Constitution)then. The Commissioner's Office annually accepted between 200 and 250 complaints dealing with violations of rights, usually from worshipers, who represent various confessions: Orthodox (but not belonging to the Moscow patriarchy), Old-believers, Muslim, Protestant and others. Anna Politkovskaya described cases of prosecution and even murders of Muslims by Russia's law enforcement bodies at the North Caucasus. However, there are plenty of Muslims in higher government, Duma, and business.

Additional concerns arise over restrictions of citizens' right to association (article 30 of the Constitution). As Vladimir Lukin noted over 15 years ago, that the number of registered religious organizations were constantly growing (22,144 in 2005), however presently an increasing number of religious organization fail to achieve legal recognition or are striped of the legal recognition previously given: e.g. Jehovah's Witnesses, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, and others.

The influx of missionaries over the past several years has also led to pressure by groups in Russia, specifically nationalists and the Russian Orthodox Church, to limit the activities of these "nontraditional" religious groups. In response, the Duma passed a new, restrictive, and potentially discriminatory law in October 1997. The law is very complex, with many ambiguous and contradictory provisions. The law's most controversial provisions separates religious "groups" and "organizations" and introduces a 15-year rule, which allows groups that have existed for 15 years or longer to obtain accredited status. According to Russian priest and dissident Gleb Yakunin, new religion law "heavily favors the Russian Orthodox Church at the expense of all other religions, including Judaism, Catholicism, and Protestantism.", and it is "a step backward in Russia's process of democratization." Since 2017, Jehovah's Witnesses have faced persecution for unclear reasons.

The claim to guarantee "the exclusion of any legal, administrative and fiscal discrimination against so-called non-traditional confessions" was adopted by PACE in June 2005.

Freedom of movement

More than four million employees tied to the military and security services were banned from traveling abroad under rules issued during 2014.

Media freedom

Reporters Without Borders put Russia at 147th place in the World Press Freedom Index (from a list of 168 countries). According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 47 journalists have been killed in Russia for their professional activity, since 1992 (as of January 15, 2008). Thirty were killed during President Boris Yeltsin's reign, and the rest were killed under the president Vladimir Putin. According to the Glasnost Defence Foundation, there were 8 cases of suspicious deaths of journalists in 2007, as well as 75 assaults on journalists, and 11 attacks on editorial offices. In 2006, the figures were 9 deaths, 69 assaults, and 12 attacks on offices. In 2005, the list of all cases included 7 deaths, 63 assaults, 12 attacks on editorial offices, 23 incidents of censorship, 42 criminal prosecutions, 11 illegal layoffs, 47 cases of detention by militsiya, 382 lawsuits, 233 cases of obstruction, 23 closings of editorial offices, 10 evictions, 28 confiscations of printed production, 23 cases of stopping broadcasting, 38 refusals to distribute or print production, 25 acts of intimidation, and 344 other violations of Russian journalist's rights.

Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, famous for her criticisms of Russia's actions in Chechnya, and the pro-Kremlin Chechya government, was assassinated in Moscow. Former KGB officer Oleg Gordievsky believes that the murders of writers Yuri Shchekochikhin (author of ''Slaves of KGB''), Anna Politkovskaya, and Aleksander Litvinenko show that the FSB has returned to the practice of political assassinations, practised in the past by the Thirteenth Department of the KGB. Christopher Andrew, Vasili Mitrokhin, ''The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West'', Gardners Books (2000),

Opposition journalist Yevgenia Albats

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