Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova has gone on hunger strike to protest the conditions that she and other Russian prisoners face. While her lawyer has highlighted the fact that Nadya is being unfairly targeted because she is challenging the system, it is also evident that she has a larger profile, and so a louder voice, […]
In September Russia supported a UN initiative “promoting human rights through sport and the Olympic ideal.” The measure granted no new rights, but was simply pledging to initiative a “review” of current policies. Below, Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations praises the efforts, but the initiative was received with skepticism immediately upon its release. Human […]
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, member of the punk rock band Pussy Riot, has ended her hunger strike after 9 days. Nadya was transferred to a prison hospital last week, and is reportedly in bad health. On September 28th, her lawyer, Irina Khrunova, told Novaya Gazeta that Nadya is in danger inside the prison, and is hunger striking […]
On May 6, 2012, a large anti-Putin protest, the “March of the Millions,” descended into chaos as it was broken up by police in Bolotnaya Square, Moscow. Since that time, Russian authorities have prosecuted 27 people, and some of the trials are still ongoing. Previously, The Interpreter translated an article, published by NG on September […]
Many of Russia’s newspapers have shut their pictures off today, replacing them with black or grey squares, or red Xs, in order to protest against the imprisonment of a distinguished photojournalist, Denis Sinyakov. Sinyakov was photographing a protest by Greenpeace activists when he and the activists were arrested. Despite the fact that Sinyakov was only […]
To criticize the party online is a crime. The Supreme Court warned the users, that for spreading rumors anyone can get up to three years in prison. This is not just an idle threat. A Beijing TV station showed a confession by a popular blogger taken into custody. He confessed that he had committed “immoral […]
Russia has begun a new wave of intense crackdowns against migrant workers across the country. Earlier in the month, hundreds or maybe thousands of Vietnamese workers were rounded up and put into a tent-city internment camp. This action, and others like it, has been defended on humanitarian grounds. However, police, often led by Neo-Nazi crowds, […]
Red Square was once again occupied by a group of protesters this weekend marking the 45th anniversary of the arrest of a group of activists and Russia’s invasion of Czechoslovakia. Recalling what happened 45 years ago, this protest was also dispersed by police, sparking an official complaint from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic. 25 […]
As a former official of the Russian Foreign Ministry, I cannot pass by a turn in our foreign policy without comment. When I worked in the ministry, it was exclusively pragmatic: no ideology, only national interests, expressed primarily in cash. Visited by the young Putin in 2001, the Greeks laughed at him in their newspapers; […]
The First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Nationalities believes that the government policy on inter-ethnic relations is not efficient because it is not supported by actions of the executive. Despite all the attention of the country’s leadership on the issue of inter-ethnic relations, recently conflicts between people of different ethnicities have become more frequent […]
