A prominent Russian opposition leader has been sentenced to 15 days in jail after taking part in a demonstration on New Year’s Eve against restrictions on freedom of speech and the verdict passed against Khodorkovsky and Lebedev

Police detained at least 130 protesters at New Year’s Eve rallies in Moscow and St Petersburg onDec. 31against restrictions on freedom of assembly and a court decision to keep former tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky in jail

Responding to the sentence, Khodorkovsky said: "Lebedev and I have shown by example that you cannot count on the courts to protect you from government officials in Russia

The bloodstains in the Minsk snow offset whatever liberal advances the authorities tolerated during the election campaign.Even more puzzling are the numerous accounts indicating that it was agents of the authorities -- provocateurs -- who began the assault on the government building that was the official pretext for the bloody crackdown

The US and Germany have voiced serious concerns about a second guilty verdict against the jailed Russian former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky

Amnesty International is calling on the Moscow courts to overturn today’s conviction of prominent businessman Mikhail Khodorkovsky for money-laundering, on the grounds that his trial was unfair and appeared politically motivated

For government critics, a conviction and lengthy sentence would signal that longstanding Kremlin promises to reform a court system marred by corruption and political influence are insincere.

US dismisses Russian efforts to show due process in tycoon’s trial, whose verdict is due today, as ’lipstick on a political pig’

The deal to be made with Minsk is simple: the first round of elections should be held again, local and international observers will be allowed to monitor and carry out exit polls, and Lukashenko should have to contest a second round with whomever gets the second-most votes

Seven presidential candidates who ran against the country’s authoritarian leader could face up to 15 years in prison and one was beaten so badly in the election’s aftermath he is unable to walk, his lawyer and a human rights organization said

A spokesperson for the Belarusian Helsinki Committee, Garry Pogonyailo, told RIA Novosti that lawyers, human rights defenders and relatives are not being admitted into the courtroom

The sweeping official victory was accompanied by brutal violence, as police and security forces clashed with opposition demonstrators, beating and arresting hundreds of people, including seven of the nine presidential candidates facing off against Lukashenko

At 5 a.m. on 20 December Spetsnaz [Special Forces ] officers burst into the office of the Belarusian opposition Internet site Charter 97 and took away all those present, including the Chief Editor Nataliya Radina and volunteers

Thousands of riot police have been deployed against around 40 thousand demonstrators protesting against what they believe was large-scale vote-rigging in the presidential elections

Clashes pitting police against would-be demonstrators broke out in the Belarusian capital as authorities sought to disperse a protest by opposition supporters angry over perceived violations on election day

Ukrainska Pravda reports that in Minsk all social networks which were being used to coordinate protest against the expected rigging of the presidential elections have been disconnected

A group of western politicians has urged Dmitry Medvedev, Russian president, to “end the persecution” of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the jailed Yukos oil tycoon, just days before a Moscow judge begins reading the verdict in his second trial

On 10 December 2010 the Supreme Court of the Republic of Tatarstan overturned a decision from the RF Prosecutor General to extradite to Uzbekistan Shokirzhon Soliyev, persecuted on religious grounds in his home country

International Ukrainian associations are up in arms over the closure of the Federal National-Cultural Autonomy of Ukrainians in Russia. They are sounding the alarm over the lack of national schools and cultural centres for Russia’s Ukrainian Diaspora

Kazakhstan’s international partners should intensify their engagement to make sure the government carries out human rights reforms, Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday, warning that the human rights situation in Kazakhstan has been declining