Russian Rights Advocates Differ On U.S. Report

March 7, 2007 -- Russian human rights advocates are divided about a new U.S. State Department report that is critical of Moscow.

The March 6 report criticizes the government in Moscow for centralizing power and for what it calls an erosion of government accountability.

Ella Pamfilova, a human rights adviser to President Vladimir Putin, rejected the report. She says the United States "has ceased to be a trendsetter in the human rights area."

But Lyudmila Alekseyeva, head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, says the U.S. report is objective on the whole.

(Interfax)