Newsletters / The Fight for Human Rights in Russia – 2017
Season’s Greetings! It’s Open Russia’s Human Rights Team here, wishing you all good health, strength and happiness in the year to come. Without your help and support we would not be able to do what we do. So on that note, our warmest and sincerest thanks go out to everyone who supported our efforts in 2017.
This year we’ve been raided, officially labelled ‘undesirable’ by the authorities, and now they’ve shut down all of our internet resources in Russia, threatening to prosecute anyone who dares to share a link to our material.
However, this hasn’t stopped us. Let’s take a look at our achievements this year in defending fundamental human rights and freedoms in Russia.
This year we have been working on 16 different criminal cases
Among them:
4 were suspended
3 had their punishments reduced down from deprivation of liberty
2 we are representing the side of the victims
1 case was closed
3 are in the appeal stage from the previous year
In 9 months we managed to raise 7,677,766 rubles for legal help through crowdfunding — a total of just over $133,000!
Over 600,000 rubles alone was spent on payment of administrative fines.
This year thousands of people have faced detention, fines and even prosecution for little more than exercising their constitutional right to engage in the political life of their country. We’ve been on the ground with them all the way from the police van to the court room.
Through our efforts we managed to organise 40 lawyers to represent over 880 people in 16 different cities throughout the course of 2017.
Over 600 people attended our Human Rights Seminars across 12 cities, designed to educate citizens on their rights and how to avoid being prosecuted for their political activity.
This year we sent out presents to the children of 29 political prisoners who will be spending the holidays without their fathers. Here’s what’s in store for them this year:
Thank you for being with us. Together we can help build a brighter future for human rights in Russia.
Yours,
Polina, Valya and Sasha