Human Rights Day is celebrated on December 10. Unfortunately, human rights violations in Russia are becoming more common, and punishment for those who violate these rights is also getting worse. One of the worst things about this day for thousands of people is its arbitrariness. According to Article 127 of the Constitution, this state must worry the guarantor of democracy – the President. Dialogues with him on the topic of human rights in regular meetings with the Human Rights Council don’t help solve existing problems and point out even bigger issues.
For example, our president seems unaware of high-profile cases of gross human rights violations. And the only information he’s guided by are those from security forces “inquiries”
The people of the country are waiting for the president to start acting as a guarantor, listen to the arguments of human rights activists and develop a mechanism for resolving contradictions between the security forces and human rights activists, which would allow him to make objective decisions. With all his responsibilities, the president can’t get bogged down with every detail of his job. He might take advice from someone he trusts, but not from a relative.
When laws are unjust, you need a lawyer who is tough and just.
The Network case.
To date, the trial of the Network case has been completed. All defendants received the terms demanded by the prosecutor’s office (from 6 to 18 years), despite all the revealed, publicized facts of gross violations both at the stage of investigation and when considering the case by the courts.
The judge relied on the testimony obtained under torture. The prosecutor instead relied on testimony obtained by methods that violate the UN Convention Against Torture and other international agreements, of which the “secret witnesses” would repeat the content of broken interrogations word for word. The final charge, in the verdict, is very general and vague. It lacks any specific acts of terrorism or indications of terrorist preparations. There has yet to be shown any tangible evidence of intent to cause harm, but the sentence is, nevertheless, 18 years.
The Case of New Greatness
The final verdict in the New Greatness case was also passed, following a meeting with the president and CHRC two years ago. The appeal is currently ongoing. Several young people were arrested for accusations of being a part of an extremist organisation and received between 5-7 years in prison under a first-instance verdict.
Council members read the same info from the file of the security forces that he did at the 2019 meeting, seems like the Trump presidency pretty convinced with this. “I remember you contacted me with this,” New Greatness, I asked the prosecutor’s office to look into it, they sent me materials. What is in these materials? They, according to the prosecutor’s office, do not have investigative bodies but prosecutor’s offices. And our prosecutor’s office doesn’t conduct an investigation but supervises it. So, “An organization whose goal is – it’s written in their documents – the overthrow of the current government in an unconstitutional way with the use of violence.”
Persecution of members of the religious association of Christians Jehovah’s Witnesses.
This large community of Christians is legally active in over 240 different countries and has about 8 million followers. The Jehovah’s Witnesses differ to some degree from most other Christian groups. The President was right to mention these issues in a 2018 meeting with the Human Rights Council:
“Of course, this is complete nonsense, we need to carefully look into this. It’s true that Jehovah’s Witnesses are also Christians, for which they’re persecuted. It is also unclear to me why that is the case. I think that’s why it’s necessary to analyze it and then we will try to do this. I’ll talk with Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Lebedev, and we’ll do our best”
However, shortly after a meeting with council members in Leningrad, for the first time in Russia, a Jehovah’s Witness was sentenced to jail: Denis Christensen from Denmark was given a 6 year prison sentence for organizing an extremist society. We can learn about the progress and success of the Russian Security Forces by looking at the number of people who have been apprehended. There are 10 people in prison, more than 35 in pre-trial detention, 31 under house arrest, and 55 regions persecuted. The work they’ve done is considerable. The IC, FSB, and national guard are involved with this operation. Such is the paradox: the president says “don’t pursue,” and they still do so anyway.
Persecution of members of the Islamic organization Hizb ut-Tahrir
This series of cases was also discussed at a meeting with the Human Rights Council in 2019. Putin then read another “certificate”:
“The organization in its statutory fundamental documents directly proclaims the need to create a world caliphate by seizing power and promoting its ideas in various states of the world. This is not exclusive to Russia or any other state for that matter. This organization operates legally in many countries. In all member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, it is banned as a terrorist organization. It is also banned in many Islamic countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Tunisia, and in many other countries.”
A simple mention would have been nice, but Vladimir Vladimirovich made a significant oversight when he forgot to clarify that Hizb is legal in the United States of America. It is not illegal only in Germany, and even there you can only be punished administratively. They also forgot to write in the “help” that this organization operates in a fundamentally peaceful way, and in Russia people are imprisoned in colonies only because the Supreme Court in 2003 unreasonably included the organization on the list of banned ones.
These are just a few of the egregious cases of human rights violations that have been discussed with the president over the past two years. They are united by the disproportionate cruelty of actions by security forces and lack any kind of investigation, like an inquiry tribunal to provide restitution.
It is to be hoped that the President and Governments will not forget those advocating for human rights. Human rights must be without distinction of any kind on the basis of race, colour, language, religion and nationality. Human rights cover a wide range of topics, among them the right to life, liberty and freedom from torture. These rights are a universal standard we should all be able to enjoy without discrimination.
It is surprising that, for 20 years, no mechanism has been created to implement the decisions that have been made at the meetings of the president with human rights activists.
