Posts Tagged ‘RFE’
A Lone Voice Tries To Reform Russia’s Prisons From Within
Senior Lieutenant Aleksei Kozlov has a difficult, thankless job. He is in charge of educational work among prisoners at Moscow’s notorious Butyrka remand prison (SIZO).
He informs prisoners of their rights and responsibilities and fields their complaints. He writes reports that are requested by lawyers, prosecutors, and lawmakers about conditions in the prison.
For nearly two years now, Kozlov has filed his reports and urged reform from within a system that seems stonily impervious to change. “I haven’t met with understanding on the part of [Butyrka’s] administration,” he says. “The violations are perfectly evident to anyone, but no one is doing anything about them.”
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U.S Senators Urge Clinton To Reconsider Visit Of Russian Officials Connected To Magnitsky Case
Two U.S. senators have urged Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to reconsider allowing the visit of two Russian officials allegedly involved in the prosecution and prison death of anticorruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
In letter dated November 8 that was obtained by RFE/RL, Senators Benjamin Cardin (Democrat-Maryland) and Roger Wicker (Republican-Mississippi) urged Clinton to “immediately review any visa applications” submitted by Russian Interior Ministry Generals Tatiana Gerasimova and Nikolai Shelepanov.
The officials are due to arrive in Washington early next week to discuss Moscow’s record of enforcing intellectual property rights, which U.S. trade officials have described as a major stumbling block to deeper economic cooperation.
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Spate Of Suspect Deaths Casts Spotlight On Moscow’s Remand Prisons
Andrei Kudoyarov, director of Moscow school No. 1308 who was accused of accepting 240,000 rubles in bribes, died of a massive heart attack in a Moscow pretrial detention jail (SIZO) on October 8. His relatives and lawyers heard the news from media reports. Official confirmation came only on October 10.
The Kudoyarov case has once again cast a harsh light on Moscow pretrial detention centers, known as SIZO’s or “investigative isolation wards” in Russian, where, according to the Moscow Helsinki Group, some 50-60 people die in custody each year.
Suspects often spend months or even years in brutal conditions among sick and violent prisoners while awaiting their day in court.
Moscow human rights advocate Aleksandr Brod believes the Kudoyarov case points to a massive problem in the Russian legal system.
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Russia Bans Entry To U.S. Officials In Retaliation
Russia has banned entry to dozens of U.S. officials allegedly involved in human rights violations in response to Washington’s blacklisting of Russian officials involved in the prison death of Sergei Magnitsky.
The Foreign Ministry said in a statement that it was blacklisting unspecified U.S. officials it claims were involved in the abductions of alleged terrorism suspects, the torture of inmates at Guantanamo prison, the killings of civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq, and abductions or abuse of Russians in the United States.
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Dead Russian Lawyer’s Colleagues To Continue Seeking Justice
The chief executive of the Hermitage Capital Management fund says he and his colleagues will continue to seek justice for a colleague they say was killed in a Russian jail, RFE/RL’s Russian Service reports.
Sergei Magnitsky, 37, was an attorney for Hermitage who died while in pretrial detention near Moscow in November 2009. Officials said he died of heart failure but rights activists say he died after being beaten and because he was denied medical treatment for an illness he had.
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European Human Rights Commissioner Criticizes Russia’s ‘Atmosphere Of Impunity’
To mark the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the murder of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya, RFE/RL Russian Service correspondent Danila Galperovich spoke with Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner Thomas Hammarberg about that case, as well as about other high-profile murder investigations and key human rights issues in Russia.
RFE/RL: We are now speaking on a very sad occasion — the fifth anniversary of the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya. What must the Russian authorities do so that Europe will say that Russia is trying to identify and prosecute those who are responsible?
Thomas Hammarberg: The most important thing is to clarify the case totally so that those who are responsible are brought to justice and punished. And that would include everyone who was involved — not only the killer himself, but also those who guided the killer, those who financed the killing, those who ordered the killing. Everyone involved, not least those who have the political or moral responsibility behind the decision that she should be killed.
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Magnitsky’s Mother Files Criminal Complaint Against Russian Officials
The mother of Sergei Magnitsky has filed a criminal complaint against Russian Prosecutor-General Yuri Chaika, senior officials of the Russian Interior Ministry, the Federal Security Service, the Penitentiary Service, and 11 judges, accusing them of being involved in a conspiracy to murder her son.
Magnitsky, an attorney who was jailed after accusing Interior Ministry officials of involvement in a massive corruption scandal, died in pre-trial detention in 2009 after suffering abuse and medical neglect.
He was acting as outside counsel for the investment firm Hermitage Capital Management.
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British MP Urges Russia Visa Restrictions Over Magnitsky Case
British Member of Parliament (MP) Denis MacShane has called on the British government to place visa restrictions on Russian officials accused of involvement in the death of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer who died in prison in 2009.
“What the United States government has done is to list 60 Russian officials who are named in connection with Mr. Magnitsky’s death and I’m urging the British prime minister, as our other British MPs, to do the same thing,” MacShane told RFE/RL’s Russian Service.
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Interview With Boris Nemtsov On August 1991 Putsch: ‘We Were Romantic…We Were Very Naive’
Boris Nemtsov has played many roles in post-Soviet Russia. He was a reformist member of the Russian Republic’s Soviet-era parliament in 1991, served as governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region, and as first deputy prime minister in the late 1990s. More recently, he has been one of the most visible faces of the opposition. RFE/RL correspondents Robert Coalson and Pavel Butorin spoke to Nemtsov on the 20th anniversary of the failed putsch in August 1991 that precipitated the fall of the USSR.
RFE/RL: It’s been 20 years since the anti-Gorbachev coup attempt and I’d like to start by asking you to take us back to that moment in your life. Where were you, and what were you doing, and what were your hopes and expectations at the that time?
Nemtsov: During those historic days I was in the White House [the Russian parliament building at the time]. I was a deputy of the Russian parliament and I was with [Russian President Boris] Yeltsin as a protector of the White House and freedom in Russia. Really, those were very interesting days and very dramatic days, I want to tell you.
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