лицо с неопределённым правовым статусом
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Articles by Igor Gukovsky
A birthday in the Urals
This November, Crimean anarchist Oleksandr Kolchenko is celebrating his 28th birthday in a prison in Chelyabinsk, in Russia’s Ural region. The story of Kolchenko’s arrest and trial reminds me of reports by Luke Harding about Russia during the 2000s. But what happened to Kolchenko, and Crimean film director Oleg Sentsov, is actually a story of how the Russian Federation began to act outside its borders — and the bounds of international law.
Russia’s “foreign agents” law is bankrupting campaigners and activists
Russia’s “foreign agents” law passed in 2012 has been a major hindrance for many NGOs by making their work illegal or cutting off their sources of funding. As a reminder, the law mandates that NGOs receiving financial support from abroad while engaging in “political activity” (a phrase clarified in 2015 to include virtually the entire spectrum of public work) must register as “foreign agents”.
“We are love”: Russian LGBT and feminist activists attacked
We continue our partnership with OVD-Info, an NGO that monitors politically-motivated arrests in Russia. Every Friday, we bring you the latest information on freedom of assembly. On 12 August, an LGBT pride action was held in St Petersburg. One woman was detained, while homophobes attacked journalists and activists. The police took no steps against the attackers. Young men in tracksuits sprayed pepper gas in the faces of the activists and journalists.
“They made this man an invalid. Can you imagine how they crippled my soul?”
Police torture ruins lives. Here, we present monologues of five women whose husbands and sons were beaten, pressured and crippled by members of the Russian police force. We translate this article with permission from MediaZona, a media platform that focuses on Russia’s judicial and prison system. Find the original here.
As the dust settles: Russian authorities move against protesters and campaigners
We continue our partnership with OVD-Info, an NGO that monitors politically-motivated arrests in Russia. Every Friday, we bring you the latest information on freedom of assembly. We have collected and analysed a large number of reports of violations by Russian police officers at anti-corruption rallies held on 12 June. Now we are able to say with certainty there have been 109 violations.
State, society and the individual in the Russian courtroom
For many, politically motivated criminal cases in Russia may seem like a foregone conclusion. The defendant is always found guilty, and the testimony and evidence presented by Russian law enforcement are always accepted by the court. But step inside the courtroom, and you’ll find that legal teams defending people at all levels of the system are able to achieve results, however meager from they might seem on the outside, and galvanise public opinion against the repressive machine.
The Russian authorities’ clampdown on activism and freedom of assembly continues
Use of force against a police officer, insulting religious believers' feelings, taking a selfie with an Easter egg — these are just some of the pretexts used against active citizens in Russia. ??????? We continue our partnership with OVD-Info, a Russian NGO that monitors politically-motivated arrests in Russia. Every Friday, we bring you the latest information on freedom of assembly in Russia.
Rostov's Red Army Faction
Since the early 2000s, the fabrication of terrorism cases is one of the main reasons for the growing numbers of political prisoners in Russia. The victims of the Russian authorities’ “anti-terrorism” campaign are usually residents of the North Caucasus, as well as Muslims from other regions, or, less often, members of leftwing or nationalist groups.
Russia’s “managed thaw”
This week, two political prosecutions in Russia were quashed — to much applause. But it’s too early to talk about positive trends — the authorities are merely changing their tactics. This article was originally published in Russian on RBC. We are grateful for their permission to translate and republish it here. This week, a Russian regional court revoked the five-month prison sentence against a children’s camp instructor and released her from prison.
Crimea: peninsula of torture
Three years on from Crimea’s annexation by Russia, brutal torture is being used to scare the peninsula into silence and submission. Three years on since the Russian authorities took control of Crimea, Russian security forces’ actions on the peninsula increasingly recall methods that first gained infamy in the North Caucasus. Crimean Tatars and pro-Ukrainian activists disappear without a trace, people who protest the policies of the new authorities are arrested, Salafi Muslims are persecuted.
Making them pay for Maidan
The Memorial Human Rights Center estimates that there are at least 102 political prisoners in Russia today. They’re convicted on various charges; all of them threadbare. But two cases are particularly odious, even in comparison with other fabricated cases. The prisoners in question, Aleksandr Kostenko and Andriy Kolomiyets, were convicted by Russian courts for taking part in opposition protests in their own country, Ukraine.
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