Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Russia

PACE To Investigate Treatment Of Baltic Russians

Rene van der Linden (file photo) (Bymedia.net)

July 30, 2007 -- Rene van der Linden, the president of the
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), said he intends
to look into what Moscow claims is widespread discrimination against
ethnic Russians in the Baltic states.

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July 30, 2007

He vowed to pay the "most serious attention" to the treatment of the Russian-speaking minority during his planned September visit to the Baltic countries.

Van der Linden made the comments today during a visit to the Russian city of Cheboksary.

Russia has frequently called attention to the Estonian and Latvian governments' treatment of their Russian minorities, where they make up some 25 and 30 percent of the population, respectively.

(Interfax)

Rising Russian Nationalism

Orthodox believers and nationalists heckling a gay-rights rally in Moscow in May 2006 (RFE/RL)

A THREAT TO CIVIL, RELIGIOUS LIBERTIES: Several leading experts told a briefing hosted by RFE/RL and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom that several mounting trends in Russia are posing a growing threat to human rights, especially for members of the country's ethnic and religious minorities.

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Why Putin Is Going To The Vatican

Bishop Assails Russian Orthodox Church

Russia: Rebranding The Nation

Nostalgia For USSR Increases

A thematic webpage devoted to issues of religious tolerance in RFE/RL's broadcast region and around the globe.

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