A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Colombia to China
Continue reading...Category Archives: Russia
Amnesty International restores Alexei Navalny’s prisoner of conscience status
- Human rights group apologizes to Russian opposition leader
- Navalny’s past nationalist statements had been at issue
Amnesty International has apologized to the jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny for stripping him of its “prisoner of conscience” status and said it would restore the designation.
Amnesty announced on 24 February that it would stop referring to Russia’s most prominent opposition activist as a prisoner of conscience on the grounds that in the past he had made comments that qualified as advocacy of hatred.
Continue reading...Ian Nepomniachtchi will not be able to play next to Russia flag against Carlsen
As Magnus Carlsen prepares for a two-day final with his old rival Hikaru Nakamura, Wada’s ban on Russia has reached chess
Ian Nepomniachtchi’s feat in qualifying as Magnus Carlsen’s official challenger in a €2m, 14-game world title series at Dubai in November was subsequently hit on two fronts. First, having won the Candidates with a round to spare, Nepomniachtchi lost Tuesday’s dead rubber in Ekaterinburg. A more significant blow came on Friday, however, when he learned that he is not allowed to play with the Russian flag beside him in Dubai, owing to his country’s ban imposed by the World Anti-Doping Agency.
Following Tuesday’s defeat by China’s Ding Liren, the 30-year-old Muscovite said that he had lacked motivation for the game, a strange comment when a win would have raised his Fide world rating close to 2800, the super-elite level, while as it was Ding’s victory regained the No 3 spot in the ratings that he had briefly let slip a few days earlier.
Continue reading...EU condemns ‘groundless’ Russian sanctions against its officials
Brussels promises to retaliate against move, which Moscow says was a response to punitive EU measures in March
The EU has accused Russia of seeking confrontation after the Kremlin sanctioned senior officials in Brussels and the president of the European parliament in a retaliatory move.
In a joint statement by Ursula von der Leyen, Charles Michel and David Sassoli, the heads of the European commission, council and parliament said Moscow’s action on Friday had been “groundless”.
Continue reading...Garry Kasparov: ‘Why become a martyr? I can do much more outside Russia’
The chess grandmaster on speaking out against Vladimir Putin and why he cannot choose the best player ever
“I haven’t stopped my fight against the regime,” says Garry Kasparov, his words bristling with defiance and quiet rage. “I’m not lowering my voice. Putin is not just a Russian imperialist. He has a much bigger agenda. He is an existential threat to the free world.”
It would have been easy for the greatest chess player in history to stay quiet after fleeing Russia in 2013 amid a crackdown on prominent opposition figures. Kasparov, after all, is a successful businessman, an expert on artificial intelligence and cyber security, and has just launched a new website, Kasparovchess.com. But that has never been his style. Not now. Not ever.
Continue reading...Is Russia’s Covid vaccine anything more than a political weapon?
Observers say the Sputnik V jab is aimed more at sowing political division than fighting coronavirus
Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine has yet to win EU regulatory approval and is likely to play little part in the bloc’s rollout, but it has already achieved what some observers say is one of its objectives – sowing division among, and within, member states.
“Sputnik V has become a tool of soft power for Russia,” said Michal Baranowski, a fellow with a US thinktank, the German Marshall Fund of the United States. “It’s planted its flag on the vaccine and the political goal of its strategy is to divide the west.”
Continue reading...Biden’s world: how key countries have reacted to the US president’s first 100 days
The new administration has signalled a sharp break in foreign policy from the Trump era – but how is that playing globally?
At the opening of Joe Biden’s online climate summit last week, Europe’s relief was was palpable: “It is so good,” gushed the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, “to have the US back on our side.”
Continue reading...Alexei Navalny looks gaunt as he appears in court after hunger strike
Kremlin critic makes first public appearance since announcing he was gradually ending hunger strike
Alexei Navalny has made his first public appearance since holding a 24-day hunger strike, appearing gaunt but spirited during a courtroom appeal against a defamation conviction that he has called politically motivated.
A photograph released by the court showed Navalny, appearing by video link, with a shaved head and wearing a prison jacket. “I am a creepy skeleton,” said Navalny, who appeared in the courtroom on a video feed. “I weighed this much in 7th grade.”
Continue reading...‘I’m a creepy skeleton’: Alexei Navalny appears in court after hunger strike – video
Alexei Navalny has made his first public appearance since staging a 24-day hunger strike.
Navalny, who was fined 850,000 roubles (£8,200) in February for defaming a second world war veteran who backed a 'reset' of Vladimir Putin’s presidential terms, has said the case against him was concocted to further damage his reputation among Russians.
In a courtroom speech, Navalny accused the government of turning 'Russians into slaves' and called Putin a 'naked king', a reference to Hans Christian Andersen’s folktale The Emperor’s New Clothes.
Navalny is serving a two-and-a-half-year sentence on an embezzlement conviction from 2013.
He was arrested in January upon his return to Russia from Germany, where he had spent five months recovering from a nerve agent poisoning he blames on the Kremlin – accusations Russian officials reject.
Continue reading...Russian man ‘trapped’ on Chinese reality TV show finally voted out after three months
Vladislav Ivanov says he regretted his decision to join Produce Camp 2021 but fans refused to vote him out
The reality TV ordeal of a Russian who joined a Chinese boy band show by accident – and made it to the final despite urging fans to vote him off – has finally ended after nearly three months.
Vladislav Ivanov, a 27-year-old from Vladivostok, was kicked out of the Produce Camp 2021 on Saturday after viewers ignored his pleas to leave and backed him all the way to the final.
Continue reading...Yemen, Myanmar and George Floyd: human rights this fortnight in pictures
A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Cambodia to Peru
‘It’s about surviving’: where next for Russia’s beleaguered opposition?
With Alexei Navalny in prison and his aides in exile or under house arrest, the opposition is on the verge of being driven underground
The future looked unspeakably grim for Alexei Navalny’s supporters before this week’s protests. Their charismatic leader was in prison and by his doctors’ accounts near death while the Kremlin was threatening to outlaw his entire movement. Sensing a looming apocalypse, one aide dubbed the protest: “The final battle between normal people and absolute evil.”
What followed was surprisingly normal: a core of tens of thousands of Navalny supporters rallied near the Kremlin, waving mobile phone torches and chanting “Putin is a thief!” The police stood back in Moscow (there was a violent crackdown in St Petersburg). For an evening, the crowd roved the streets of the capital at will.
Continue reading...European MPs targeted by deepfake video calls imitating Russian opposition
Politicians from the UK, Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania tricked by fake meetings with opposition figures
A series of senior European MPs have been approached in recent days by individuals who appear to be using deepfake filters to imitate Russian opposition figures during video calls.
Those tricked include Rihards Kols, who chairs the foreign affairs committee of Latvia’s parliament, as well as MPs from Estonia and Lithuania. Tom Tugendhat, the chair of the UK foreign affairs select committee, has also said he was targeted.
Continue reading...Russia to pull back troops from Crimea and Ukraine border
Defence minister announces decision after military buildup led to fears of possible invasion
Russia has said it will recall many of its troops from Crimea and the border regions of Ukraine, rolling back an aggressive military buildup that had sparked fears that Moscow was preparing an invasion force.
The decision, announced by the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, came after video on social media and satellite imagery last month revealed a buildup of tanks, artillery, fighter jets and even short-range ballistic missiles massing 150 miles from Ukraine. US officials called it the largest muster of Russian military power along the border since the 2014 annexation of Crimea.
Continue reading...Oligarch’s son told to pay mother £75m after world’s biggest divorce case
Court rules that Temur Akhmedov had worked with his father to help him avoid £453m settlement
The son of an oligarch caught up in the world’s largest divorce case has been told to pay £75m to his mother after a judge at the high court in London found he was “a dishonest individual who will do anything to assist his father”.
Temur Akhmedov was found to have worked together with his father, the billionaire Farkhad Akhmedov, to hide hundreds of millions of pounds of assets – including several mansions, a superyacht, a helicopter and an extensive art collection – in order to avoid paying a £453m divorce settlement.
“Temur has learned well from his father’s past conduct and has done and said all he could to prevent his mother receiving a penny of the matrimonial assets,” the judge, Gwynneth Knowles, said in a ruling on Wednesday. She ruled that he should pay his mother more than £75m.
Continue reading...US ambassador to leave Moscow as tensions rise
John Sullivan’s departure will leave both countries’ embassies without their top diplomats at key moment
Washington’s ambassador to Moscow has announced that he will return to the US for consultations, days after the Russian government recommended he leave the country during what it said was an “extremely tense situation”.
John Sullivan’s departure will leave both countries’ embassies without their top diplomats at a crucial moment, with Washington and Moscow recently announcing new sanctions, a Russian military buildup near Ukraine, and concerns about the opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s health while in detention.
Continue reading...Alexei Navalny moved to hospital as fears grow for life of Putin critic
Doctors say opposition leader, who is on hunger strike, is in danger of a heart attack or kidney failure
Alexei Navalny has been transferred to a prison hospital as concerns have grown among supporters that the opposition leader is dangerously ill and could die “at any minute”.
Navalny’s transfer came after his doctors released paperwork showing that the Kremlin critic, who has been on hunger strike for nearly three weeks, said he was in danger of a heart attack or kidney failure.
Continue reading...Russia expels 20 Czech diplomats in tit-for-tat response
Czechs expelled 18 Russians over Skripal suspects’ alleged role in deadly warehouse blast in 2014
Moscow has expelled 20 Czech diplomats in a tit-for-tat response after Prague accused Russian military intelligence of setting off a deadly blast at an ammunition warehouse in 2014.
Video from Moscow showed the Czech ambassador being summoned to the foreign affairs ministry where he was informed that four-fifths of his diplomatic envoys would be given 24 hours to depart the country.
Continue reading...‘What do they want from us?’ As Russian forces amass, a Ukraine frontier town feels fear and despair
Caught on the frontline between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists, Marinka is a town forgotten by the world
Vera Basova stands by her house holding a local newspaper. The front page headline says Russia is bringing tanks to the eastern Ukrainian border. “What do they want from us? Why are they dragging those tanks here?” Basova asks her neighbour.
The 90-year-old worries she will have to go back to hiding in her basement to escape shelling in the war between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian separatists in the eastern Donbas region that recently entered its eighth year and has taken more than 13,000 lives.
Continue reading...Alexei Navalny allies call for mass protests in Russia to save his life
Kremlin critic’s team want showdown as Vladimir Putin delivers state of the nation address
Allies of Alexei Navalny have called on his supporters to stage mass protests on Wednesday in towns and cities all across Russia, amid a dire warning that the jailed Kremlin critic and opposition leader is now dangerously ill and could die “at any minute”.
Navalny’s team said the situation had got so desperate that there was no time to delay. They had previously said street protests would resume once they reached 500,000 signatures in support – with the current tally about 50,000 short.
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