Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Russia

Amnesty Denounces Russian Court Decision

Stanislav Dmitrievsky in court in February 2006 (ITAR-TASS)

January 24, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- Amnesty International says it is "deeply distressed" at a decision by Russia's highest court to uphold a lower-court ruling closing down the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society.

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January 24, 2007

Nicola Duckworth, Europe and Central Asia Program director at the international rights watchdog said the January 23 Supreme Court decision was a "double blow" -- to freedom of expression and to civil society.

He said the decision sent a "chilling signal" that other NGOs could face the same fate.

The Nizhny Novgorod-based group which monitored the human rights situation in Chechnya was closed down in October on extremism charges. Its executive director, Stanislav Dmitrievsky, was convicted earlier on charges of inciting ethnic hatred for publishing articles by Chechen separatist leaders.

After the Supreme Court announced its decision, Dmitrievsky told Amnesty International the group would take its case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

The Chechnya Conflict

The aftermath of a December 2002 Chechen resistance attack on the main government building in Grozny (epa)

CHRONOLOGY

The fighting in Chechnya has raged, with short breaks, since 1994. It has brought misery, death, and destruction to the North Caucasus republic and to Russia as a whole. View an annotated timeline of the conflict.

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RFE/RL's complete coverage of Russia's war-torn Republic of Chechnya.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin covers his face during a conference of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs in Moscow on February 9.

Administrative (Resource) Breakdown

Administrative resources make up the glue that holds authoritarian structures like Putin's power vertical together. And there have been plenty of signs recently that this glue is weakening. More

Syrians in the northwestern town of Kfar Nubul pose with a cartoon depicting Russia

Angry Over Syria, Arab World Threatens Russian Boycott

Groups in a number of Arab states, angry over the Russian-Chinese veto of a UN resolution aimed at stopping the violence in Syria, have called for a one-day boycott of Russian and Chinese goods on February 12. More

Alla Dzhioyeva attends a protest by her supporters in Tskhinvali on January 28.

South Ossetian Opposition Leader Hospitalized After Raid

Alla Dzhioyeva, the opposition candidate whose victory in a runoff ballot in November for de facto president of Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia was swiftly annulled by the republic's Supreme Court, was taken to a hospital after a raid by some 200 masked security personnel on her headquarters in Tskhinvali. More