One of the journalists who has resigned explains that the new management prohibited the journalists from covering the activities of the opposition and instructed them to provide mainly “positive news”.

On 16 May a festival of civic Ukrainian and Belarusian poetry was held outside the Belarusian Embassy in Kyiv. The meeting began with the lighting of candles in solidarity and remembrance near the photos of civic activists who disappeared without trace in Belarus

The argument over the rehabilitation of the Tsar and his family has gone on for 10 years and this is not the end, since the court also upheld the order that the Prosecutor General reconsider the application.

The Uzbek independent journalist Umida Niyazova was released today after the Appeal Court quashed a seven year sentence passed a week ago for “illegal border crossing" and “smuggling of subversive literature

More than 100 members of Britain’s political and cultural elite have signed a letter in which they state: "It is part of our intention to bring the horrific situation in Chechnya to wider public attention, and exhort President Putin to take whatever action he can to restore peace and the rule of law in Chechnya."

Another series of events in Russia where the law appears to be for the records, and abductions and disappearances used to serve the same purpose. The account here would suggest that the FSB is conniving with the Uzbek authorities to abduct and forcibly return to Uzbekistan people persecuted for their religious beliefs

The article prompted some Muslims in Baku to publicly “sentence to death” its author, threatening to behead him. Nonetheless, the court found that the author had incited enmity

According to the Deputy Director of the analytical centre “Sova”, the number of racial hate crimes this year is a third higher than over the same period a year ago

“The 32-year-old independent journalist and human rights researcher was declared guilty of “illegal border crossing”, “smuggling of subversive literature” and provocation using foreign funding.

18-year-old Belarusian activist Yladzimir Shulzhytsky printed out the times for broadcasts on Radio Svoboda and distributed them to people’s letterboxes in his city of Smorhoni. ““I simply saw no other alternative, but to give people a chance to receive truthful information”

Umida Niyazova, a 32-year-old journalist and single mother with a toddler son, is accused of “illegal border crossing” and “smuggling of subversive literature" and could face a ten-year prison sentence

The picketers were arrested in St. Petersburg on Wednesday, They were wearing orange construction helmets and explained that “Petersburg residents can only defend themselves from police batons with helmets”.

After the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, Yelena Tregubova published an open letter in the German press calling on Angela Merkel and other Western leaders to demand that Vladimir Putin put a stop to political murders, the violations of human rights and elimination of the independent media in Russia.

During an action entitled: “I walk around Moscow: Excursion around the riot police’s places of combat prowess”, the head of the movement “For Human Rights” Lev Ponomaryov and three others were detained while attempting a peaceful excursion around the places where people were brutally dispersed on 14 April

Captain Ulman and two others charged with the cold blooded killing of six Chechen civilians have failed to appear in court. Why men facing twenty year sentences for multiple killings were free to wander is only one of the questions that must be asked

The group of journalists state in their appeal that there is an ever-rising number of illegal detentions and beatings of journalists by the police

At the same time the Moscow Helsinki Group and the movement “For human rights” have announced that they are forming a commission to investigate the circumstances of the organizing and dispersing of the ““Marches of those in dissent”

The Russian FSB has demanded the recording of a Radio Echo Moskvy broadcast with Garry Kasparov. They want to decide whether calling on people to join a peaceful rally constitutes “a public call to carry out extremist activities” (Article 280 of the RF Criminal Code)

In flagrant violation of the right of peaceful assembly enshrined in its own constitution, as well as in international conventions to which Russia is a signatory, the Russian authorities continue to stamp down on any opposition to the present regime

As feared, riot squads [OMON] used force to detain dozens of opposition activists in Moscow on Saturday 14 April, including the former world chess champion and leader of the United Civic Front Garry Kasparov.