Excerpt from Statement by Edward Snowden to human rights groups at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport on July 12, 2013
These nations, including Russia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Ecuador have my gratitude and respect for being the first to stand against human rights violations.
From
Human Rights Watch report, April 24, 2013
The Russian government has unleashed a crackdown on civil society in the year since Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency that is unprecedented in the country’s post-Soviet history.
Today, July 18, 2013
Alexei Navalny, opposition leader and critic of Vladimir Putin.
Found guilty of embezzlement.
A Russian court has found Alexei Navalny guilty of embezzlement in a trial widely seen as a means of silencing the popular Russian opposition leader.
For several years he has been a thorn in the side of the Russian political establishment, campaigning against the endemic corruption, and coining a phrase to describe the ruling party, United Russia, that has stuck in everyone's minds - "the party of crooks and thieves". In the election years of 2011/12 his significance increased even more, as he became the unofficial leader of the protest movement that brought tens of thousands of people onto the streets. They were the biggest anti-government demonstrations of the Vladimir Putin years.
July 11, 2013
Sergei L. Magnitsky , Dead Lawyer and Kremlin Critic
Posthumously found guilty of tax evasion.
Magnitsky was jailed as he tried to expose a huge government tax fraud. He was tortured and died in a Russian prison after being denied proper medical care.
July 3, 2013
Yevgeny R. Urlashov, popular mayor of Yaroslavl, anticorruption activist.
Urlashov, one of the few opposition figures in Russia to hold a major public office, was arrested and charged with bribery and extortion in a case that immediately set off accusations against the Kremlin of political intimidation.
June 29, 2013
Moscow and St. Petersburg gay people
Attacked and beaten at pride demonstrations by police. A new law, passed in June, effectively bans gay rights rallies and criminalizes public speech in support of gay people.
The current situation in Russia is eloquently explained in this video.
Additional information about the individuals who appeared in the video:
Elena Panfilova and Ivan Nenenko
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Elena Panfilova, heads Transparency International, with Ivan Ninenko. About Russia, Panfilova said, “I believe that in our country, corruption is at the center of all other problems,” but it could apply to the United States just as well. In a recent article on HuffingtonPost, she described seeing Putin in person, endorse the need for transparency in government at the same time he ruthlessly cracks down on organizations like hers.
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Tanya Lakshima
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In October 2012, when Tanya Lakshima was carrying her unborn child, she began receiving a string of text messages from an unknown sender with threats of violence against her, and her husband and baby. The threats included explicit references to intimate family details that she said could have been obtained only through electronic surveillance. Lakshima is a Director of Human Rights Watch in Moscow.
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Oleg Orlov
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Oleg Orlov is is the chairman of Moscow's Human Rights Center Memorial. He is holding a photograph of his colleague, Natasha Estemirova, a photo journalist who was documenting the Russian campaign of genocide in Chechniya when she was abducted and murdered.
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Lyudmila Alexeyeva
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Lyudmila Alexeyeva was one of the founding members of the Moscow Helsinki Group in 1976. It was named after the Helsinki Accords of 1975, which obligated the USSR to recognize and protect human rights. At 85 years-old she is still the chair of Moscow's Human Rights Watch and she remains active in spite of the recent crackdowns.
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