News
- By RFE/RL
North Macedonia Gets EU Backing From Austria, Czech Republic, Slovenia
North Macedonia received support in its bid to begin European Union membership talks from Austria, the Czech Republic, and Slovenia, a day after Bulgaria said it planned to continue to exercise its veto to block the small Western Balkan nation.
The foreign ministers of the three countries on May 22 voiced support for North Macedonia, along with small neighbor Albania, to start talks with the EU, saying that separate bilateral issues should not block enlargement into the region.
Bulgaria on May 21 said it did not plan to lift its veto on long-delayed accession talks between North Macedonia and the EU over a language and history dispute with its neighbor.
Bulgaria, which joined the EU in 2007, wants Skopje to acknowledge that both its identity and language have Bulgarian roots.
Skopje has long insisted Macedonian is a distinct South Slavic language that forms part of the country's culture and national identity, while Sofia says Macedonian is a regional dialect of Bulgarian.
Unanimity is required from all EU member for the adoption of the negotiating framework.
Austria’s Alexander Schallenberg, the Czech Republic's Jakub Kulhanek, and Slovenia’s Anze Logar arrived in Skopje to offer their backing for EU accession talks, scheduled to start in June.
The three will travel to EU hopeful Albania on May 23.
Kulhanek said it is “not fair” for an EU member nation to condition the process on a bilateral issue.
“This is a crucial time, and we cannot allow [the process] to be stuck with such demands,” he said.
Many in the West have urged the EU to speed ascension talks, seeing membership in the bloc as a way to counter Russian and Chinese efforts to gain influence in the region.
European Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement Oliver Varhelyi and Portuguese Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency, visited North Macedonia after talks in Sofia.
Zoran Zaev, North Macedonia’s prime minister, on May 21 said the two EU officials presented a proposal that he said provided a “good basis” for resolving his country’s dispute with Bulgaria.
Skopje, which first applied for EU membership in 2004, received a positive assessment from the European Commission in 2005.
Macedonia settled a nearly three decade-long dispute with neighboring Greece over the country’s name, leading it to change it to North Macedonia. Athens considers the name Macedonia to refer to one of its regions.
Western Balkan nations Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, and Bosnia-Herzegovina are at various steps in their quests to enter into membership talks with the EU.
With reporting by RFE/RL’s Bulgarian and Balkan services, and AP
Russian Police Detain Four At Meeting Of Opposition Figures, As Crackdown Continues
Russian police detained four people at a meeting of opposition figures and municipal deputies in the city of Novgorod, in the latest crackdown on Kremlin critics ahead of elections later this year.
Yulia Galyamina, an opposition leader from Moscow; Vitaly Bovar, a municipal deputy from St. Petersburg; Yamalo-Nenets lawmaker Aleksandr Bondarchuk; and Viktor Shalyakin, the head of the Novgorod Yabloko party, were all detained on May 22.
Police broke up the meeting at the Rossia hotel soon after it started, citing a breach of coronavirus rules.
Andrei Nikitin, the governor of the Novgorod region, banned gatherings of more than 30 people in one room in a decree on May 8.
Gatherings of more than 30 people in one room are banned. Police claimed 31 people were present, although organizers said only 25 people were in attendance.
"This is political persecution," said Galyamina, who posted a video of herself being taken into police custody.
In March, Russian police detained around 200 people, mostly opposition figures and municipal deputies, at an event in Moscow.
Among the detainees were prominent Putin critics, including senior Open Russia leaders Andrey Pivovarov and Anastasia Burakova; former Yekaterinburg Mayor Yevgeny Roizman; opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza; and city deputy Ilya Yashin.
The detentions were the latest crackdown on Russia’s opposition since Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny was arrested, put on trial, and imprisoned in the wake of his January return from Germany, where he had been recovering from a nerve agent poisoning he blames on Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Navalny's team has accused authorities of seeking to further intimidate critics ahead of general elections in September.
Navalny and his supporters have developed a "smart-voting" system, which is aimed at undoing United Russia’s stranglehold on political power in the upcoming election through better coordination of voters at the local level.
With reporting by dpa
CORRECTION: This article has been amended to correct the Novgorod governor's first name as well as to clarify that four people were detained and the events took place in the city of Novgorod.
World Athletics Approves 23 Russians To Compete In International Competitions
World Athletics, the global track-and-field athletics governing body, has approved 23 Russians to compete in international competitions as neutral athletes, taking the total to 27 this year.
The Russian Athletics Federation (RusAF) has been suspended since 2015 after a report commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) found evidence of mass doping among Russian track-and-field athletes.
The doping scandal resulted in Team Russia's ban from international competition, including the 2016 Summer Olympics and 2018 Winter Olympics.
Since RusAF’s suspension, clean Russian athletes have been competing as authorized neutral athletes under the nondescript logo AOR, or Athlete Of Russia.
Among the 27 neutral athletes approved by World Athletics on May 22 were women's high jump world No. 1 Mariya Lasitskene and Anzhelika Sidorova, who won silver and gold in women's pole vault at the 2019 World Championships.
No more than 10 Russian athletes will be granted eligibility to compete at this year’s Tokyo Olympics, under rules approved by the World Athletics.
Two applications for authorized neutral athlete status have so far been rejected by the World Athletics doping review board. The individuals have not been named.
Based on reporting by Reuters and AP
Belarusian Activist Serving Prison Sentence For Protests Reportedly Dies Of Heart Attack
A Belarusian political activist who was sentenced in January to five years in prison for participating in anti-government protests has reportedly died.
The precise circumstances of Vitold Ashurak’s death weren’t immediately clear. The news website Onliner and other media said he suffered a heart attack in a prison facility in eastern Belarus.
Ashurak, 50, was a member of the Belarusian Popular Front opposition party and a coordinator of the For Freedom movement.
At a closed-door trial in January, a court found him guilty of gross violations of public order and violence against police.
Exiled opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya condemned prison authorities for allowing Ashurak’s death.
"People are not just suffering, people die because of the regime in Belarus," she said in a post to Twitter.
Tens of thousands of Belarusians took to the streets for months last year after Alyaksandr Lukashenka declared a landslide reelection victory in a vote in August that was widely disputed.
Tsikhanouskaya has called for new elections, something Lukashenka has refused to agree to.
The European Union and the United States have sanctioned Lukashenka and dozens of officials and businessmen with asset freezes and visa bans.
In response to Ashurak's death, European Union spokesman Peter Stano said the bloc "demands the immediate release" of all political prisoners.
With reporting by AFP
- By RFE/RL
U.S. Blacklists 13 Russian Ships In Nord Stream 2, After Exempting Operator, CEO
The United States formally blacklisted more than a dozen Russian ships involved in the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, days after exempting the pipeline's Russian operator and CEO.
The widely expected move, announced late on May 21 by the U.S. Treasury Department, came amid vehement criticism from congressional Republicans about the White House's earlier announcement that it would not include the pipeline's Russian-owned operator in the new sanctions.
Nearly complete, the Baltic Sea pipeline will bring Russian gas directly to Germany, bypassing land routes through Ukraine, Belarus, and other countries.
Critics said it will increase German dependence on Russian energy supplies and make Berlin more susceptible to Russian politics. It will also deprive Ukraine and other countries of lucrative transit fees.
However, the pipeline has been backed by the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel. Political observers said President Joe Biden appeared to not want to pick a fight with a U.S. ally over the issue.
The State Department earlier this week announced the intention not to sanction the pipeline's Russian-owned operator, Nord Stream 2 AG, or its CEO, Matthias Warnig, who is an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Republican senators say they will introduce legislation to reinstate the sanctions.
"I don't understand. Do they not want to make Putin mad? I don't get that. Do they not want to get Germany mad?" Jim Risch, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told reporters on May 20.
With reporting by Reuters
Belsat Satellite Network Reports Raid By Belarusian Security Forces
Belarusian security forces raided a Minsk studio used by a Polish-based TV station that has produced investigations critical of authoritarian Belarusian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka and his associates.
Belsat said uniformed officers broke into a studio on May 21 used for producing a talk show, detaining six people, including four cameramen.
The host of the talk show, Hleb Labadzenka, confirmed that the raid had taken place but told Euroradio that he was not detained.
The studio was being prepared for a future program and no filming was taking place when the raid took place, the outlet said.
There was no immediate confirmation of the detentions from Belarusian law enforcement.
In April, the channel published an investigation into the business dealings of the daughter-in-law of the country’s strongman leader, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, and others associated with him.
Earlier this year, two journalists for Belsat were handed what their lawyers called an "absurd" sentence of two years in prison each for reporting live from a rally in Minsk in November.
Separately on May 21, Belsat said two freelance journalists had been detained in Minsk and were taken to a police facility. They were to appear in court on May 24, the report said, although details were not available.
Broadcasting in Belarusian, Belsat TV is a subsidiary of Poland's public broadcaster, Telewizja Polska. Its correspondents have been harassed and detained in the past by Belarusian agents. It is also funded by several European governments and foundations and had correspondents in Ukraine, Russia, Lithuania, and other European countries.
Belarus has been gripped by nearly unprecedented political turmoil since last August, when Lukashenka declared victory in a disputed presidential election.
Belarusians have taken to the streets around the country to protest and in some cases have clashed with security officials, who have arrested thousands, including dozens of journalists who covered the rallies. Most of the top opposition figures have been pushed out of the country.
Authorities have also stepped up pressure on independent media and stripped accreditation from a host of correspondents from international news organizations.
Earlier this week, police launched a probe of the country's largest independent online media outlet, Tut.by, searching the homes of several of its editors and blocking its website.
Meanwhile, a Minsk court on May 21 sentenced another reporter who covered the police raid on Tut.by to a 15-day prison sentence, a media advocacy group said.
The Belarusian Association of Journalists said 27 media workers are currently behind bars, either awaiting trial or serving sentences.
Bulgaria Investigates Claims Opposition Figures Were Wiretapped
SOFIA -- Bulgaria is investigating claims that opposition politicians were wiretapped under the government of former Prime Minister Boyko Borisov ahead of last month’s general elections.
Borisov's center-right GERB party, which has ruled the country for almost a decade, came in first in the April 4 elections with 26 percent of the vote.
New elections are scheduled for July 11 after three failed attempts by the country’s main parties to form a government.
Atanas Atanasov, an opposition politician and the former chief of the counterintelligence services, claimed on May 20 that 32 opposition politicians were wiretapped ahead of the elections.
He said the politicians included his own liberal, Western-leaning grouping Democratic Bulgaria and others who participated in nationwide anti-corruption protests last year.
The current caretaker prime minister, Stefan Yanev, a critic of Borisov, was among them, Atanasov said.
Sofia prosecutors said in a statement on May 21 that they were looking to establish if there had been "any irregularities in the use of special surveillance devices."
Caretaker Interior Minister Boyko Rashkov said he was alerted that "the state agency for national security is currently destroying documents" allegedly related to the wiretapping.
With reporting by AFP
- By RFE/RL
Study: Iran Using Crypto Mining To Evade Sanctions
Iran is using Bitcoin mining to evade crippling U.S. sanctions on its economy, according to a new study.
Blockchain analytics firm Elliptic estimates that around 4.5 percent of global Bitcoin mining takes place in Iran, allowing the country to earn hundreds of millions of dollars in cryptocurrencies that can be used to “purchase imports and bypass sanctions.”
U.S. sanctions have severely affected Iran’s banking sector and prevented the country from exporting oil, which accounts for 70 percent of the country's revenues.
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are created through a process known as mining, where powerful computers compete to solve complex mathematical formulas or puzzles. The process requires huge amounts of electricity.
"Iran has recognized that Bitcoin mining represents an attractive opportunity for a sanctions-hit economy suffering from a shortage of hard cash, but with a surplus of oil and natural gas," said Elliptic.
Iran’s crypto mining industry has grown in recent years, with the government providing the industry with cheap electricity and demanding that it sells mined bitcoins to the central bank.
Cheap power has attracted foreign miners, especially from China, to Iran.
Iran uses crypto mining to pay for the import of authorized goods, Elliptic said.
"Iran-based miners are paid directly in bitcoin, which can then be used to pay for imports -- allowing sanctions on payments through Iranian financial institutions to be circumvented," the London-based company said.
With reporting by Reuters
- By RFE/RL
Bosnia Opens Probe After Alleged Sarajevo Sniper Video Appears On YouTube
Bosnian war crimes prosecutors have launched an investigation after a video emerged of an alleged sniper taking shots during the almost four-year-long siege of Sarajevo in the 1990s.
The footage, posted by French journalist Philippe Buffon on YouTube this week, appeared to show Bosnian Serb fighters hiding in a house in the suburbs of Sarajevo.
One of them could be seen firing a sniper's rifle and boasting that he hit someone "in the head.”
Bosnia-Herzegovina’s prosecutor's office said in a statement that a case was opened “immediately” after the video appeared on the Internet.
The office said its Special Department for War Crimes will examine “all the circumstances and the role of all the people in the recording.”
The local telecommunications company Telemach BH said it had contacted prosecutors after one of its employees was recognized in the video. It said the employee had been suspended.
The YouTube video, titled The Snipers Of Nedzarici, after a Sarajevo neighborhood, was no longer available on the video-sharing platform on May 21.
The footage was distributed on social networks and broadcast on local television, causing a stir in the Bosnian capital, where more than 11,000 people were killed in the siege by Bosnian Serb forces.
Separately on May 21, Bosnia's top court indicted eight Serb ex-soldiers on charges of crimes against humanity for their alleged involvement in the killing of 78 Bosnian Muslim civilians during the 1992-95 war.
Prosecutors accuse the former soldiers of "persecuting the Bosniak civilian population based on national, ethnic, and religious grounds with discriminatory intention, and of killing civilians in violation of the international law."
They say the eight Bosnian Serbs had driven Bosniak civilians out of a school in the western village of Velagici, lined them up, and shot dead at least 78 people in June 1992.
There were no comments from the suspects or their representatives. Some are now believed to be in Serbia.
Hundreds of people have been convicted of crimes committed during the Bosnian War in which more than 100,000 people were killed.
Local judiciary officials are still examining some 600 cases involving 4,500 suspects, according to official data.
The conflict ended in a U.S.-brokered peace agreement in 1995 that divided Bosnia into two entities -- the Muslim and Croat federation and Republika Srpska -- held together by joint central institutions.
With reporting by AFP and RFE/RL’s Balkan Service
Bulgaria Says It Remains Opposed To EU Accession Talks For North Macedonia
SOFIA/SKOPJE -- Bulgaria says it does not plan to lift its veto on long-delayed accession talks between North Macedonia and the European Union over a language and history dispute with its neighbor.
“No change in Bulgaria's national position regarding the Republic of North Macedonia can be expected," caretaker Bulgarian Foreign Minister Svetlan Stoev said after meeting with visiting EU officials in Sofia on May 21.
Bulgarian President Rumen Radev said that EU enlargement in the Balkans must be based on achieving sustainable results in building good neighborly relations.
"That is why we want to see not declarations, but clear guarantees for our national security and for our national interests," Radev’s office quoted him as saying.
In November 2020, Bulgaria blocked the start of EU accession talks with North Macedonia by refusing to approve the so-called negotiation framework with Skopje.
Unanimity is required from all EU member for the adoption of the negotiating framework.
Any new developments on the issue before Bulgaria holds snap parliamentary elections on July 11 appear unlikely.
European Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement Oliver Varhelyi and Portuguese Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency, also visited North Macedonia after their talks in Sofia.
North Macedonia Prime Minister Zoran Zaev said the two EU officials presented a proposal which he said provided a “good basis” for resolving his country’s dispute with Bulgaria.
“This draft solution does not touch or encroach our Macedonian identity issues,” Zaev said, without revealing any details of the proposal.
Bulgaria, which joined the EU in 2007, wants Skopje to acknowledge that both its identity and language have Bulgarian roots.
Skopje has long insisted Macedonian is a distinct South Slavic language that forms part of the country's culture and national identity, while Sofia says Macedonian is a regional dialect of Bulgarian.
A joint commission of historians was established to resolve the standoff but has failed to find common ground.
With reporting by AP
Belarusian Journalist Arrested While Covering Tut.By Raid Sentenced To 15 Days
Journalist Artsyom Mayorau has been sentenced to 15 days in jail for "petty hooliganism" after he reported on a police raid at the popular news site Tut.by.
Mayorau, who works for the Belarusians And The Market newspaper, was sentenced by the Moskovsky District Court in Minsk on May 21.
A police report said that a policeman allegedly approached Mayorau to have a "preventive conversation" with the journalist, when he "started swearing and waving his arms."
Belarusian authorities have launched a severe crackdown on independent journalists in the country as they look to silence reporters from covering a wave of dissent sparked by a disputed presidential election last August that handed authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka his sixth consecutive term in power.
Mayorau was reporting when financial police launched a probe into Tut.by, the country's largest independent online media outlet, and raided its offices and the homes of some of its staff saying it violated media laws by publishing content on behalf of BYSOL, a foundation that helps victims of political repression but lacks proper state registration.
Fourteen Tut.by staff members and workers from companies affiliated with the site remain in custody following the raids. The widow of Tut.by founder Yury Zisser, Yuliya Charnyauskaya, has been put under house arrest.
The United States, human rights groups, and media freedom watchdogs have denounced the move against Tut.by.
Calling the case against Tut.by “a new attempt to silence the most well-known independent media in Belarus,” Christophe Deloire, executive director of Reporters Without Borders (RSF), has urged the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to “ensure respect for the right to the freedom to inform" in the country.
Tens of thousands of people in Belarus have been swept up in the crackdown. Protesters say the election was rigged in favor of Lukashenka, who has ruled Belarus since 1994.
Dozens of reporters have been temporarily detained or jailed over the ensuing nine months.
Following the presidential election, "dozens of sociopolitical and media sites were blocked in Belarus, and a number of print outlets were forced to stop publishing," according to the Belarusian Association of Journalists.
As of May 18, 16 journalists and other media workers were behind bars, it said.
Lukashenka has insisted he won the August 9, 2020 election and has refused to negotiate with the opposition.
Opposition leader Svyatlana Tsikhanouskaya, who insists she won the vote, says she was forced to leave Belarus for Lithuania a day after the election amid threats to herself and her family.
At Least 10 Workers Die In Russia From Sewage Plant Fumes
Russian officials say 10 people have died of suspected poisoning during sewage treatment works in the southwestern region of Rostov.
Local authorities said in a statement that the accident took place on May 21 at a pumping station in the village of Dmitriadovka outside Taganrog.
Ten people died and eight others were hospitalized, they said.
The Investigative Committee said they were exposed to a noxious substance and a criminal investigation was launched into potential violations of safety rules.
According to preliminary information, the workers were exposed to methane, which among other gases is a byproduct of human and organic waste.
With reporting by Interfax, Reuters, and AFP
Russian Lawmakers Move To Ban Navalny Supporters From Running For Office
Russia's lower house of parliament is planning to tighten a bill ahead of its second reading to ban supporters and members of "extremist" organizations from being elected to any post.
The draft law that first passed in the State Duma on May 18 barred individuals involved in the activities of an organization that has been recognized by a court as extremist or terrorist from running in elections for the lower house for up to five years.
The measure appears aimed at neutralizing the foundation of jailed opposition politician Aleksei Navalny that Russian authorities are seeking to have declared extremist ahead of parliamentary elections in September.
His Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) has already been declared a “foreign agent,” a punitive designation under a separate law.
FBK wrote on Twitter that "the law prohibiting everyone who is against Putin from being elected has yet to be adopted, but it is already being 'improved.'"
In its current form, the bill provides for the restriction to apply retroactively, meaning that it would also target individuals who joined organizations before they were declared as extremist or terrorist.
The second reading of the proposed law is scheduled for May 25, with its authors expecting that it will come into force before the September elections.
“Well, the main secret of our time has been revealed: why [President Vladimir] Putin never pronounced the name 'Navalny!' Because everyone who has said it at least once will not be allowed to participate in the elections,” a close Navalny associate, Leonid Volkov, tweeted.
“Vladimir Putin’s regime aims to fully purge vocal critics from the civic space,” said Natalia Zviagina, the Moscow director for Amnesty International, after lawmakers gave preliminary backing to the draft legislation. “The main target of this latest particularly brazen attack is the movement led by Aleksei Navalny.”
“Having unjustly imprisoned its archfoe, the Kremlin is now targeting all those who had the nerve to support him,” Zviagina said.
The ruling United Russia party is facing polls showing its support at some of the lowest levels ever.
- By Current Time
European Rights Court Finds Baku Authorities Guilty Of Trying To Kill Blogger
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has found Azerbaijani authorities guilty of torturing blogger Aleksandr Lapshin and trying to kill him in a Baku prison.
The court said in the unanimous ruling, published on May 20, that Baku must pay compensation of 30,000 euros ($36,500) to Lapshin, who was detained in Belarus in 2016 and extradited to Azerbaijan, where he was charged with illegally visiting Nagorno-Karabakh -- a breakaway region in Azerbaijan that was controlled by ethnic Armenian separatists.
Lapshin, a travel blogger and journalist who holds Russian, Ukrainian, and Israeli passports, has maintained his innocence, saying his visit to the breakaway region did not have any political motives and he considers Nagorno-Karabakh to be Azerbaijani territory.
He was sentenced to three years in prison in July 2017.
In September 2017 Lapshin said he was attacked while in solitary confinement and almost killed. Officials said it was a suicide attempt and three days later President Ilham Aliyev granted Lapshin a pardon.
Lapshin spent three days in the intensive care unit of a Baku hospital before he was deported to Israel, where he made a statement to the press rejecting the Azerbaijani claims.
Medical examinations conducted in Israel confirmed the blogger’s version that someone had tried to murder him. Independent experts in Russia and the Netherlands also confirmed the assassination version, which became the basis for filing a complaint against Azerbaijan at the ECHR.
The court found that "the respondent State had failed to satisfy the burden of proof resting on it to provide a satisfactory and convincing explanation as regards the incident which had put the applicant’s life in danger."
It added that "medical and other evidence available clearly showed that the applicant’s life had been in serious and imminent jeopardy and that his survival had been down to prompt medical intervention," adding that Azerbaijani authorities failed to adequately investigate the incident.
- By RFE/RL
Russian Lawmakers Introduce Bill To Force IT Giants To Establish Local Branches
A group of Russian lawmakers has introduced a bill to parliament that would require foreign IT companies to set up local units or face penalties, including a possible ban, as Moscow continues to tighten its control over the flow of information on the Internet.
The bill, presented to parliament on May 21, comes as the Internet rapidly gains clout in Russia, offering a vehicle to challenge the Kremlin narrative and prompting President Vladimir Putin to turn his sights on social-media companies.
In 2019, Russia passed a "sovereign Internet" law that gives officials wide-ranging powers to restrict online traffic, up to the point of isolating the country from cross-border Internet connections during national emergencies.
Aleksandr Khinshtein, the head of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy and one of the authors of the bill, said the legislation is primarily about the cross-border transfer of personal data.
The legislation obliges foreign IT companies with a daily traffic count in Russia of 500,000 or more to establish full-fledged branches that would take responsibility for violations of Russian law and interact with government agencies.
If the foreign entity refuses to comply, they would face penalties including a ban on advertising their services, a ban on collecting payments, or partial or full blockage of their services in the country, Khinshtein said.
Lawmaker Anton Gorelkin, who is a member of the information policy committee, said in a post on Telegram that he expected the legislation would make tech giants more attentive to Russian demands.
"With the emergence of the necessary regulatory framework, interaction should improve," Gorelkin wrote.
Moscow has repeatedly warned that it is ready to use the "sovereign Internet" law if unrest were to reach a serious scale.
In January and early February, a series of massive anti-government rallies actively promoted on platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok, the Chinese video app that played an outsize role in hosting content by opposition politician Aleksei Navalny and his supporters, ushered in an intensified push to fine-tune what appears online in Russia.
Russia has been punitively impeding the speed of Twitter since March and has warned other tech platforms, including YouTube, over failing to delete content it deems illegal.
With reporting by TASS and AFP
Memorial Rights Group Calls Four Crimean Tatars Being Tried For Religious Ties Political Prisoners
The Memorial Human Rights Center says it has recognized four Crimean Tatars being tried for their alleged association with a banned Islamic group as political prisoners.
The Moscow-based group said the four are being illegally persecuted for political reasons after being arrested "in connection with their non-violent exercising of their rights to freedom of religion and association"
"The Memorial Human Rights Center, according to international criteria , considers Seytumer Shukrievich Seytumerov, Osman Seytumerov, Amet Suleimanov and Rustem Seytmemetov political prisoners, and Seytumer Veliyevich Seytumerov -- illegally persecuted for political reasons," the group said in a statement released on May 20.
"Memorial calls for an immediate end to the prosecution of all those involved in this case and the release of those who are unreasonably detained," it added.
The four were arrested on March 11, 2020, at their homes in Crimea. They were charged with creating a cell of Hizb ut-Tahrir, an Islamic group that is banned in Russia, but is legal in Ukraine.
"The persecuted Muslims were only guilty of the fact that, according to the investigation, they were members of a public religious association," Memorial said.
"They are not charged with preparing terrorist attacks or voicing terrorist threats," it added.
Russia took control of Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014 after sending in troops, seizing key facilities, and staging a referendum dismissed as illegal by at least 100 countries. Moscow also backs separatists in a war against government forces that has killed some 13,200 people in eastern Ukraine since April 2014.
Moscow’s takeover of the peninsula was vocally opposed by many Crimean Tatars, who are a sizable minority in the region.
Exiled from their homeland to Central Asia by the Soviet authorities under dictator Josef Stalin during World War II, many Crimean Tatars are very wary of Russia and Moscow's rule.
Rights groups and Western governments have denounced what they describe as a campaign of repression by the Moscow-imposed authorities in Crimea who are targeting members of the Turkic-speaking Crimean Tatar community and others who have spoken out against Russia's takeover of the peninsula.
Kazakh Builders Form Union In Test Of Government's Labor Reforms
NUR-SULTAN -- Builders working in the Kazakh capital, Nur-Sultan, say they have formed an independent labor union, the first to do so since the country last year amended its organized labor law to streamline the union-registration process.
The union, called Umit, said it received documentation confirming if was officially registered with the city's Department of Justice on May 20.
The head of the union, crane operator Kairat Aidar, said the move was prompted by the failure of crane operators in several cities to receive a wage increase given the inherent danger of the work.
"When the crane workers raised the issue of their salaries, we sought help from many unions. But they couldn't solve the problem," he said.
"So we decided to create a trade union that would protect the rights of all workers in the construction industry. We work within the law, and we require employers to comply with labor law," he added.
Last year, workers across Kazakhstan protested over poor working conditions and low wages in the oil-rich country.
The government approved reforms in May 2020 that made the registration process more straightforward and lifted a mandatory affiliation requirement that was seen as a major obstacle for creating unions.
Still, rights activists and labor leaders say the government has steadily increased pressure on unions since a series of deadly protests staged by oil workers in western Kazakhstan in 2011.
They note that early this year the right of workers to organize and carry out their activities without government interference was dealt a blow when the Specialized Interdistrict Economic Court in Shymkent suspended the independent Industrial Trade Union of Fuel and Energy Workers for six months for allegedly failing to register in accordance with the union law.
Human Rights Watch has said that claims the union violated registration provisions in the trade union law were "unsubstantiated or based on legal provisions that either no longer exist or do not apply."
"The improvements to the trade union law are nothing but lip service if Kazakh authorities are still trying to paralyze independent trade unions in practice," the rights watchdog's senior Central Asia researcher, Mihra Rittmann, said after the court ruled on February 5.
- By RFE/RL
Orban Says Hungary To Scrap Most COVID Curbs
Hungary will lift most remaining COVID-19 restrictions, including a night-time curfew, as soon as the number of those vaccinated reaches 5 million this weekend, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on May 21.
In his weekly interview with state radio, Orban said masks would no longer need to be worn in public, and gatherings of up to 500 people could be held in the open air. Events in closed spaces will be open to those with vaccination cards, he said.
"This means we have defeated the third wave of the pandemic," Orban said, adding that the time has come to say "goodbye to masks" in public places.
Hungary is the only EU member state that has given the green light to Russian and Chinese vaccines in large quantities before the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has examined or approved them.
Hungary now has one of the EU's highest inoculation rates, with 50 percent of its population of around 10 million having already been given at least one shot.
According to a deal reached yesterday, citizens of the EU's 27 countries will be able travel within the bloc once they get a digital health pass displaying their vaccination status, results of COVID-19 tests, or whether they have recovered from a coronavirus infection.
However, it remains unclear if Hungarians inoculated with the Russian and Chinese vaccines will enjoy the same travel facilities as the rest of the EU citizens who got the EMA-approved jabs.
On May 20, Hungary opted out of a new agreement the EU has signed with Pfizer and BioNTech for the supply of up to 1.8 billion doses of their COVID-19 vaccine -- the only member of the bloc to do so.
With reporting by Reuters and AFP
Group Pushes For Renaming Main Street In Srebrenica After Pro-Serbia Austrian Writer
The local administration of Srebrenica is due to discuss a proposal to name the Bosnian town's main thoroughfare after Austrian writer Peter Handke, a Nobel Prize winner and an apologist for Serbian war crimes.
Srebrenica, located in Republika Srpska, the Serbian entity of Bosnia-Herzegovina, was the site of the July 1995 massacre of more than 8,000 Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb forces -- the worst atrocity committed in Europe since World War II that was ruled as an act of genocide by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
The proposal, to be discussed on May 24,was put forward by a so-called citizens' association called the Eastern Alternative of Republika Srpska. The street currently bears the name of Marshal Josip Broz Tito, the longtime leader of communist Yugoslavia.
The president of the association, Vojin Pavlovic, told RFE/RL that "it is absurd for the Marshal Tito Street to exist in Srebrenica nowadays, while a Nobel laureate cannot have his own street."
"Peter Handke is a man who is a great friend of the Serbian people first, and secondly, a great fighter for the truth," Pavlovic told RFE/RL.
Handke, a controversial choice for the 2019 Nobel Prize for Literature, has long been known as a supporter of the late Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic's policies in the 1990s.
He was criticized by the international community for his support for Serbia during the break-up of the former Yugoslavia, visits to Milosevic in the Hague tribunal's detention unit, and attendance at his funeral.
Bosnia, Albania, Croatia, North Macedonia, Kosovo, and Turkey boycotted the Nobel Prize award ceremony in 2019. Protests were also held in Sweden on the day the awards were presented in Stockholm.
Handke, 78, who is considered to be one of the most original German-language writers alive, has argued that Serbs were unfairly portrayed by the Western press as the only aggressors in the conflict.
Pavlovic said that, even if the proposal is rejected by the Srebrenica Municipal Assembly, his association intends to place street signs with Handke's name on the thoroughfare and adorn it with posters and other symbols. He said he will personally finance the initiative.
So far, 94 mass graves have been exhumed in Srebrenica and the surrounding municipalities, and the remains of more than 6,900 victims killed by Republika Srpska Army forces have been identified.
Putin Claims Russia Would 'Knock Out The Teeth' Of Any Foreign Aggressor
Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that Moscow would "knock the teeth out" of any country that tried to take pieces of his country's vast territory.
Putin made the remarks on May 20 during a televised virtual meeting of the National Security Council, saying that foreign efforts to contain Russia date back centuries.
"Everyone wants to bite us somewhere or to bite off something from us. But they -- those who are going to do it -- should know that we will knock their teeth out so that they cannot bite," the Russian leader said. "This is quite obvious, and the key to this is the development of our armed forces.”
Putin also said that Western sanctions against Russia are continuing a longtime historic trend of containing a powerful rival and alleged that some critics of Moscow whom he didn't name have argued that it's unfair for Russia to keep its vast natural riches all to itself.
"Even after we lost one-third of our potential" when former Soviet republics became independent after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, "Russia is still too big for some," Putin said during the meeting.
Western countries have imposed sanctions on Russia over the complaints about Moscow's activities and behavior, including election interference, the annexation of the Ukrainian region of Crimea, and the treatment of jailed opposition activist Aleksei Navalny.
Putin also claimed that Russia now has the most modern strategic nuclear forces compared to other nuclear powers, noting that Moscw this year is set to spend the equivalent of $42 billion on defense.
The comments came amid a push for a summit between Putin and U.S. President Joe Biden as ties with Western countries slump to a post-Cold War low.
Based on reporting by AP, Reuters, and dpa
- By RFE/RL
U.S. Lawmakers Urge Biden To Lift Nord Stream 2 Sanction Waivers, Citing Security
U.S. lawmakers have urged President Joe Biden to reconsider his decision to waive some sanctions related to the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline between Russia and Germany, saying the move was against "both U.S. national and transatlantic security interests."
“We firmly believe it is in the U.S. national interest to defend Ukraine’s sovereignty [and] to protect Europe’s eastern flank from Russian aggression,” the co-chairs of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus said in a joint statement released on May 20.
It is also in the U.S. national interest to “limit Russia’s malign influence and energy coercion in Europe” and to “stop the spread of strategic corruption by malign actors in Europe to protect the integrity of democratic institutions and the transatlantic relationship,” the statement added.
The joint statement was made by Representatives Marcy Kaptur (Democrat-Ohio), Andy Harris (Republican- Maryland), Mike Quigley (Democrat- Illinois), and Brian Fitzpatrick (Republican- Pennsylvania).
On May 19, the Biden administration sanctioned several companies and ships for their work on Nord Stream 2, but waived penalties on the firm behind the Baltic Sea project -- Nord Stream 2 AG -- and its chief executive, Matthias Warnig.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the move was “in line with our commitment to strengthen our Transatlantic relationships as a matter of national security.”
Blinken also said that the administration would "continue to oppose the completion” of the $12-billion project, arguing it would weaken European energy security.
The decision not to sanction Nord Stream 2 AG – a Gazprom subsidiary -- and Warnig was hailed by both the Kremlin and Berlin, but it angered many Democratic and Republican lawmakers.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy expressed concern that Washington could move to completely lift the sanctions against Nord Stream 2, which he said would be "a major geopolitical victory" for Russia.
Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in March 2014 and backed separatists in two of its eastern provinces, sparking a war that has killed more than 13,000 people.
In their statement, the co-chairs of the Congressional Ukraine Caucus said Nord Stream 2 is a "Russian malign influence project" and a "bad deal for Europe." They described Warnig as a "crony" of Russian President Vladimir Putin and a "former Stasi goon," referring to East Germany’s State Security Service.
"While we appreciate the Administration’s efforts to maintain relations with our close ally Germany as a nation also facing Russian malign influence, it cannot be at the expense of transatlantic and Ukrainian security," they added.
"We strongly urge the Administration to reconsider its position," the representatives concluded.
About 95 percent of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline has been completed and it could be finished by September.
The pipeline will markedly increase the amount of natural gas that Russia will be able to pump directly to Germany, bypassing Eastern European nations like Ukraine and Belarus.
U.S. officials, and some European leaders, have warned it will increase Germany's dependence on Russian gas, and make it vulnerable to Moscow's political whims.
The German government has refused to halt the project, arguing it is a commercial venture and that Russian gas already flows freely into Europe along other routes, including an existing Baltic Sea pipeline.
Russia's Ethnic Mari Voice Concerns Over Efforts To Restrict Traditional Worship
YOSHKAR-OLA, Russia -- Members of Russia's Mari minority have voiced concern over what they see as efforts to restrict the practice of their ancient pagan religion.
Mikhail Danilov, the minister for domestic development in the western Russian republic of Mari El, has instructed local authorities not to allow "radically-inclined followers of the Mari traditional religion" to worship on municipal property.
The written instructions were issued in April but only became known to the public on May 19.
Local residents told RFE/RL on condition of anonymity that they were "offended" by the instructions.
One of the residents said that the aim was to "establish stricter control over worship."
Igor Kudryavtsev, the head of regional organization that promotes Mari language and culture, told RFE/RL that it intended to issue a statement within the next few days.
Around 52 percent of Mari El's 700,000 residents are ethnic Mari. The community is working to preserve its traditions and Finno- Ugric language.
Their religion is based on worshipping the forces of nature.
Abkhazia Separatist Leader Meets Syrian President In Damascus
The de facto president of Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia, Aslan Bzhania, has wrapped up a three-day visit to Syria, his office said on May 19.
According to Bzhania’s press service, he had breakfast with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus on May 19 at the end of what Abkhazia's separatist government called an "official visit."
Some politicians in Georgia have criticized the government in Tbilisi for not officially denouncing the trip.
After a short war between Georgia and Russia in August 2008, Moscow recognized Abkhazia and another Georgian breakaway region, South Ossetia, as independent countries.
Only a handful of other states, however, have followed the lead of the Kremlin, which has kept Russian forces in both regions.
Assad's government, an ally of Moscow, recognized Abkhazia’s independence in May 2018.
In October 2020, the Abkhaz separatists opened an "embassy" in the Syrian capital.
Russia, along with Iran, has provided crucial military support to Assad in the Syrian conflict, which began with a crackdown on anti-government protesters in March 2011.
More than 400,000 people have since been killed and millions displaced.
Kazakhstan Urged To Drop Criminal Case Against Instagrammer Over Satirical News
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is urging Kazakhstan to drop charges against a 25-year-old blogger accused of "disseminating knowingly false information" on his now defunct satirical Instagram account.
Police detained Temirlan Ensebek for questioning on May 15 after they searched his home in the Central Asian nation’s largest city, Almaty, and confiscated a laptop and two mobile phones.
If convicted, Ensebek could face up to three years in prison.
Ensebek created the Qaznews24 Instagram page last month in which he joked about the situation in the tightly controlled former Soviet republic and mocked, among other things, the state sponsored personality cult around former President Nursultan Nazarbaev.
The Qaznews24 account had garnered more than 5,000 followers before being deleted.
"Respecting and protecting free speech means allowing people to express criticism and satire without fear of retribution," HRW said in a statement on May 20.
The New York-based human rights watchdog urged the Kazakh government to "amend or repeal laws that criminalize peaceful expression of critical views, such as article 274 of the Criminal Code, to prevent further arbitrary prosecutions that violate human rights."
"The authorities may be trying to send the message that satire has no place in Kazakhstan, but all they have shown is that they can't take a joke."
Russian Man Gets Four Years For Attacking Police At Pro-Navalny Rally, Says He Wasn't A Participant
MOSCOW -- A court in Moscow has sentenced an activist to four years in prison for allegedly attacking a police officer during unsanctioned rallies supporting jailed opposition politician Aleksei Navalny in January.
On May 20, the Tver district court found Yevgeny Yesenov guilty of punching a police officer at least five times during a pro-Navalny rally on January 23. He was sentenced the same day.
Yesenov pleaded guilty to the charge but said that he just happened to be in the area and was not a participant in the rally, nor "does not support the views of its organizers." It was not clear why he attacked the policeman.
Yesenov is one of several people who have been handed prison terms or suspended sentences in recent weeks for attacking police during the nationwide demonstrations held in January against Navalny's arrest.
Navalny was detained at a Moscow airport on January 17 upon his arrival from Germany, where he was recovering from a poison attack by what several European laboratories concluded was a military-grade chemical nerve agent in Siberia in August.
Navalny has insisted that his poisoning was ordered directly by President Vladimir Putin, which the Kremlin has denied.
In February, a Moscow court ruled that, while in Germany, Navalny had violated the terms of parole from an old embezzlement case that is widely considered to have been politically motivated. Navalny's 3 1/2-year suspended sentence from the case was converted to a jail term, though the court said he will serve 2 1/2 years in prison given time he had been held in detention.
More than 10,000 supporters of Navalny were detained across Russia during and after the January rallies. Many of the detained men and women were either fined or handed several-day jail terms At least 90 were charged with criminal misdeeds and several have been fired by their employers.
With reporting by MBKh Media
RFE/RL has been declared an "undesirable organization" by the Russian government.
If you are in Russia or the Russia-controlled parts of Ukraine and hold a Russian passport or are a stateless person residing permanently in Russia or the Russia-controlled parts of Ukraine, please note that you could face fines or imprisonment for sharing, liking, commenting on, or saving our content, or for contacting us.
To find out more, click here.
Editors' Picks
Top Trending
At Least 50,000 Russian Military Deaths, Likely Thousands More, Recorded In Ukraine War
2'The Best' For Putin: How The Kremlin Stands To Gain From Iran's Attack On Israel
3Explainer: The 'Kamikaze' Drones Iran Used To Attack Israel
4Iran's Unprecedented But Choreographed Attack On Israel Underlines Tehran's Limits
5Israel Vows Victory, Retaliation In 'Fashion And Timing' Of Its Choosing
6Situation In East Has 'Deteriorated,' Ukrainian Commander Says, As Dry Conditions Aid Russia
7Wider Europe Briefing: Kosovo Could Finally Get In The Council Of Europe
8Live Briefing: Russia Invades Ukraine
9At Least 17 Dead In Ukraine As Zelenskiy Laments Lack Of Air Defenses
10Ukraine Will Become NATO Member, Predicts Former Deputy Secretary-General
Subscribe
