Russian human rights activists have proposed adopting an election code that would regulate the country’s election legislation, Andrei Buzin, the head of the election monitoring department of the Golos NGO said on Thursday. “The things that are now happening to the election legislation is a full deviation from the 1997 version,” Buzin said, referring to [...]
Tag: rights activist
October 20, 2011
June 29, 2011
In Soviet Relapse, Critics Sent to Psychiatric Hospitals
A woman adjusting her hat as she walks with other people on Red Square on Tuesday. The view of the square is through Voskresensky (Resurrection) Gate. Editor’s note: This is the first article in a series on punitive psychiatry. In the Soviet Union, dissidents were labeled schizophrenics, thrown into psychiatric hospitals and drugged just for questioning the government. It wasn’t until the Soviet demise [...]
June 28, 2011
Governor: One Dog, 2 Cats Per Family
Belgorod’s governor has infuriated animal lovers by banning all residents from walking dogs outside their homes and limiting them to one dog and two cats per household in what he called an attempt to control rabies. Animal rights activists called the limits unconstitutional and complained to prosecutors, while veterinarians defended the ban as a wake-up call for negligent pet owners. Dog owners will only be allowed to walk their pets [...]
June 27, 2011
Russian Legislation Takes Aim At Human Rights Court In Strasbourg
MOSCOW — Fifteen years after joining the Council of Europe, Russia appears to be reconsidering one of its main responsibilities as a member. Acting Federation Council Speaker Aleksandr Torshin has introduced legislation that would allow Russia’s Constitutional Court to override rulings of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). If passed into law, it would [...]
June 27, 2011
Ryazan
1 of 5 RYAZAN — There is a widespread belief in Ryazan that Koreans owe some of their digital excellence to a local plant called Plazma. But few would remember the South Korean firm’s name when talking about Plazma’s joint venture with the Koreans — a memory dating back to the mid-1990s. Plazma’s deputy director [...]
June 26, 2011
Russia: Gay Rights Activists Detained In St. Petersburg
Russian police arrested over a dozen gay rights activists taking part in a Gay Pride rally over the weekend, briefly detaining leading gay rights activist Nikolai Alexeyev. The group of some 15 people, including activists from Ukraine and Belarus, demonstrated on June 25 in St. Petersburg’s Dekabristov Square. The protest was being held in solidarity [...]
June 24, 2011
Podcast: Can Anyone Fill Bonner’s Shoes? Plus, Voices From Syria And A Crossword Controversy
The Blender Is there anyone among Russia’s young activists who can fill the void left by the death of Yelena Bonner? Has Russia lost its greatest moral voice? In this week’s show, we look at the legacy of Russian rights activist Yelena Bonner, whose death on June 18 silenced one of the most outspoken critics [...]
June 24, 2011
June 22, 2011
Some 450 detained in Belarus protests over economy
Around 450 people were detained in Belarus on Wednesday as police dispersed protests across the country against the government’s economic policies, Belarusian human rights activists said. “About 450 people were detained in Belarus for participating in the Revolution Through Social Media protest action,” the Vesna human rights group said on its website. Some 200 people, [...]
June 22, 2011
Yelena Bonner In Her Own Right
At the 90th anniversary of Andrei Sakharov’s birth in Moscow on May 21 this year, the ranks of Sakharov’s cohorts were already thinner. Figures like veteran rights campaigner Larissa Bogoraz and scientist Valentin Turchin had died in recent years, and people felt that if they didn’t get to the 90th, they might not see people [...]
June 22, 2011
Yelena Bonner, Andrei Sakharov’s Widow, Dead at 88
Yelena Bonner, Andrei Sakharov’s Widow, Dead at 88 The Associated Press Published: June 22, 2011 (Issue # 1662) Sergei Karpukhin / The Associated Press Yelena Bonner, photographed in 1994. BOSTON — Yelena Bonner, a rights activist and widow of Nobel Peace Prize winner Andrei Sakharov, has died, her daughter said Sunday. She was 88. Bonner died of heart failure Saturday [...]
June 21, 2011
Yelena Bonner, Sakharov’s Widow, Dead at 88
Yelena Bonner addressing the European Parliament in Strasbourg in 2008. BOSTON — Yelena Bonner, a rights activist and widow of Nobel Peace Prize winner Andrei Sakharov, has died, her daughter said Sunday. She was 88. Bonner died of heart failure Saturday afternoon in Boston, according to her daughter, Tatiana Yankelevich. She had been hospitalized since Feb. 21, Yankelevich said. Bonner grew famous [...]
June 20, 2011
Yelena Bonner: ‘It Is Time To Say Goodbye’
It often happens that even when you try to prepare yourself for something tragic and inevitable, you find yourself completely unprepared when it actually occurs. That is what happened to me when I heard the news of the passing of Yelena Bonner. Forgive me, but I can’t get used to calling her anything other than [...]
June 19, 2011
EU’s Barroso, Buzek express condolences over Bonner’s death
President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso and European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek expressed their condolences over a death of a human rights activist and the widow of the late Soviet dissident and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov, Yelena Bonner. Bonner died on Saturday in Boston, the U.S., at the age of 88 [...]