Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky.

Kremlin Human Rights Watchdog’s New Master

International Policy Digest

By John K. Yi – May 5, 2012

The Council’s Final Meeting

In two days, Vladimir Putin will be inaugurated for this third term as the President of the Russian Federation. And with his reentry into the nation’s chief position, the issue of human rights and the development of civil society, a touted reform in the past four years under current President Medvedev, face an uncertain future.

Earlier this week President Medvedev’s held his final meeting with the Kremlin’s Council on the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights. With their terms expiring on Monday, the departing council members did not hold back their disappointment of the Council’s accomplishments and criticism of the Kremlin’s unwillingness to make true reform.

The Council Chairman Mikhail Fedotov opened the meeting by raising his concerns to the exiting President that the council, though it has helped passed a number of laws, has still a long way to go on issues of police and anti-corruption reform. He described the current government apparatus as “sufficiently bulky, archaic, and clumsy.” After the meeting in an interview with the press, Fedotov warned that if under President Putin the members of the Council were to be replaced by “generals” and “those who attack human rights,” he would have no interest in being part of such a Council.

Other prominent members of the Council made their own departing shots, when they announced that they would not be returning to their posts under the new administration.