Human Rights Watch demands that the authorities be held accountable for Azimjon Askarov’s needless death

A Russian court has sentenced 64-year-old Yuri Dmitriev to three and a half years’ imprisonment on one of four charges he was facing, acquitting him on the others

The verdict is due on 22 July in what a huge number of prominent Russians have called one of the grubbiest political trials in the country

Vladimir Shypytsin could face a 5-year prison sentence after his Ukrainian flag knocked the cap off the police officer who was roughly trying to detain him for a perfectly peaceful picket on 18 July in support of Crimean Tatar political prisoners

World leaders, professionals and tourists beware – a visit to Russia could get you imprisoned for up to 10 years

Even by modern Russian standards, the ‘Novoye Velichiye’ case stands out since the 10 victims, including a 17-year-old girl, were accused of organizing an ‘extremist organization’ which was, in fact, entirely created by an FSB infiltrator.

A top challenger to Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka has been barred from running in the country’s election next month amid growing public discontent over the Belarusian authoritarian leader’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic

A week after a fake referendum was used to push through changes to Russia’s Constitution, a draft bill has been introduced aimed at criminalizing any suggestion that Russia should return annexed Crimea to Ukraine

Russia’s cynical rerun of its trial of world-renowned historian of the Soviet Terror, Yuri Dmitriev, is coming to an end with the prosecutor on 7 July demanding a 15-year sentence in a maximum security prison

The second trial is coming to an end of Yuri Dmitriev, historian and head of the Karelian Memorial Society, our friend and colleague.

News only emerged of the arrest of 53-year-old former footballer Vasyl Vasylenko on 6 July 2020, nine months after he was arrested in Moscow

“I am not afraid of criticizing the state. I am not afraid of criticizing the law enforcement system, and of telling the FSB that they are at times wrong. Because I know that it will really get frightening if I don’t say this, if nobody says it” - from Svetlana Prokopyeva’s final address to a Russian court

Ihor Kiyashko, a Ukrainian lawyer imprisoned in Russia on bizarre ‘spying’ charges, has been placed in a prison medical unit with potentially serious health issues, including thrombophlebitis, a blood clotting disorder which has developed in the appalling conditions of Russian prisons and high blood pressure

Syarhey Tsikhanouski, a jailed Belarusian vlogger who is seeking to take part in an August presidential election and facing criminal charges, has been sentenced to additional 15 days in jail on a charge of "disobeying the police."

A Russian body which boasts of collaboration with the Council of Europe has added Rimma Vashchenko, a 90-year-old Jehovah’s Witness to its notorious ‘List of Terrorists and Extremists’, which also contains the names of over 80 Ukrainian political prisoners

Amnesty International has demanded the release of all bloggers and activists recently arrested in Belarus, including three prominent bloggers - Ihar Losik, Syarhei Pyatrukhin and Syarhei Sparish – who were arrested on 25 June.

The co-chair of Putin’s working group on amendments to the Constitution has openly acknowledged that one of the additions is aimed at preventing any legislative initiative that would end Russia’s illegal occupation of Crimea.

Two Ukrainians imprisoned in Russia would almost certainly not be there were it not for their nationality, and there may well be many more such victims

International appeal calling on Russian to release Yury Dmitriev, historian of the Gulag and Terror and, since December 2016, a political prisoner

Russia is increasingly reinstating Soviet punitive psychiatry, with the victim this time a Siberian shaman, Alexander Gabyshev who wanted to drive out Russian President Vladimir Putin like an evil spirit