Human rights defenders and other nonviolent critics of the government face growing repression in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, Human Rights First said in a report released today. Lawyers, journalists, and others who monitor and expose government abuses of human rights – especially in the regions of Chechnya and Ingushetia – are increasingly being targeted for intimidation, arrest, torture, “disappearance,” and murder by agents of the government.
In The New Dissidents: Human Rights Defenders and Counterterrorism in Russia, Human Rights First questions the Russian government’s justification of ever increasing constraints on its nonviolent critics, including human rights defenders, as necessary in the fight against terrorism. The report describes how President Putin and other senior Russian officials have manipulated the heightened global concern about terrorism since the September 11, 2001 attacks to dampen criticism of their own repressive actions. The result, as documented in the report, has been that U.S. and other international criticism of the Russian government’s human rights abuses has dropped off significantly, even as the scope and severity of violations have increased.
“The principal hope of human rights defenders in Russia,” said Neil Hicks, Director of International Programs at Human Rights First, “is the renewed support of the United States and the rest of the international community in meeting the challenge of resurgent authoritarianism. It is essential that world leaders do not permit the Putin government to shield itself from scrutiny by tying its actions to the ‘global war on terrorism’,” added Hicks.
U.S. policy toward Russia must include a heightened focus on the protection of human rights in Russia, especially the perilous situation faced by many human rights defenders. President Bush’s February 24 meeting with President Putin in Bratislava, Slovakia, affords a critical opportunity for the United States to advance those human rights concerns. In a February 11 letter to President Bush, Human Rights First urged the President to use that meeting to emphasize the need for the Russian government to adhere more firmly to its international human rights obligations.
The new report describes challenges faced by human rights activists in Russia who are the targets of direct attacks, fabricated prosecutions, restrictive laws, and other forms of official harassment and obstruction. In a climate of fear stoked by terror attacks like that on the Beslan school in September 2004, human rights defenders find their patriotism impugned and themselves repeatedly criticized in state-controlled media as sympathizers with terrorists.
“Russia must respect human rights, democracy, and the rule of law as it deals with the genuine threat of terrorism within its borders,” said Hicks. “Such protections provide an antidote to the conditions which give rise to violent attacks against civilians. In contrast, the abuse of basic rights in the course of efforts to combat such violence – by blurring the distinction between those who stand for the rule of law and those who defy it – ultimately undermines efforts to promote democracy and freedom, while weakening the government's efforts to ensure national security.”
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