Newsletters / Monthly Human Rights Report – December 18
Season’s greetings! Last week, the world celebrated Human Rights Week, commemorating the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. As the defence of human rights in Russia is integral to our mission and efforts, we join the global community in celebrating the enduring principles of human rights. These freedoms are afforded unto each and every one of us, and we strive to hold those in Russia who think otherwise to account. In this month’s roundup: court cases, subpoenas and even news from the European Court of Human Rights.
A Moscow court fines a group of activists, who participated in readings of Adam Smith on November 5th, for disobeying police orders.
December 7th – Moscow
According to police officers, participants in the reading engaged in ‘passive resistance’. We brought photos and videos of their detention to the court’s attention, visibly demonstrating that there was no resistance of any kind. The activists were on their way to lunch when they were asked to produce their documents. Having done so, they were immediately escorted into a police van. The judge, however, ruled in favour of the police based on their reports of the incident.
‘Open Russia’ activists request that the Russian Investigative Committee return all seized boardgames. They are subsequently summoned for interrogation in the YUKOS case.
December 7th – Moscow, Kemerovo, Tver and Tomsk
The Russian Investigative Committee received requests to return the board game ‘Instead of Putin’, confiscated during office searches, to members of the ‘Open Russia’ movement. In response, the 11 members were invited to come in for questioning on the YUKOS criminal case. To add insult to injury, most of them are school pupils. If you suddenly received a similarly joyful letter, write to us.
The European Court of Human Rights accepts the appeal of a sound engineer, arrested on March 26th for broadcasting a rally on the channel ‘Navalny LIVE’.
Hooray! We finally received an answer to the fourth out of five appeals. The ECHR will review the case of sound engineer Vladislav Mosin. On March 26th, the day of Russia-wide rallies against corruption, he was working on an online broadcast in the office of the Anti-Corruption Foundation. Police officers simply entered the building, reported a non-existent fire, and, under this pretext, evacuated and detained all employees of the foundation. A court kept Mosin under arrest for 7 days.
Police officers intervene in the All-Russian conference of ‘Open Russia’.
More than 30 policemen arrived on the basis of an anonymous phone call, interrupted the conference, called the movement ‘undesirable’, demanded explanations from all those present and escorted them out of the building. As always, our lawyers were on hand. We strive to highlight that an unregistered Russian social movement cannot be deemed undesirable.
Be sure to watch the video concerning the relationship between the police and our activists!