Memorial, which has won the European Union’s Sakharov Prize, is one of the few human rights groups in Russia willing to speak out about cases of alleged kidnapping, torture and extrajudicial killings by Russian forces

The European Parliament invites you to put questions to Oleg Orlov of the Russian Human Rights NGO Memorial about their work, and the current state of democracy and human rights in Russia

Relatives and colleagues of the Ingush opposition figure insist that the crime was deliberate and consider the sentence inadequate. They have stated that they plan to appeal

Human rights activists are convinced that the planned widening of the powers of the KGB, MIA [Ministry of Internal Affairs] and Department of Financial Investigations will lead to repression of members of the opposition

Government-influenced TV is hampering democracy in Russia, Belarus and most post-Soviet countries in Central Asia and the South Caucasus, and it could endanger international peace and security if misused as a propaganda tool, OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Miklos Haraszti warns

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered an investigation into the death in prison of a lawyer who was awaiting trial on charges of tax evasion

On 19 November the European Court of Human Rights issued its judgment in the case of Kaboulov v. Ukraine which in effect imposes a moratorium on extraditions to Kazakhstan unless credible assurances of safety are offered by Kazakhstan

Russia’s ban on the death penalty will remain when a current legal suspension expires on 1 January, the country’s Constitutional Court has ruled

The Head of the Memorial Human Rights Centre Oleg Orlov has been questioned as part of the criminal charges of defamation of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov. If convicted, he faces up to three years imprisonment

A great nation claiming equal status with other great nations cannot plead exemption when it comes to press freedom and human rights. Russia cannot have it both ways

"For Human Rights" and the Moscow Helsinki Group say their work has been thrown into jeopardy by municipal efforts to evict them from their offices

Andrei Zatoka’s daughter, Yekaterina has addressed these words of thanks to all those who took part in the campaign to free her father

On 5 November a Turkmen court reviewed the appeal against the conviction of renowned environmentalist Andrei Zatoka. The prison sentence was revoked and Andrei ordered to pay a fine. Crude Accountability reports that he has now been released

In Russia the criminal prosecution of historian Mikhail Suprun and archivist Aleksandr Dudarev has been transferred to the investigation unit for the North-Western Federal District of the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor’s Office

Two Russian nationalists have been arrested and charged in the high-profile killings of human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov, and journalist Anastasia Baburova, who were gunned down in Moscow in January

For the first time in Russia people accused of involvement in Hizb-ut-Tahrir were charged with preparing for a violent seizure of power. At the same time, the material evidence did not include any items inevitably linked with preparing for violent crimes

Please add your voice. This man has committed NO CRIME but has been sentenced to 5 years imprisonment. Only our pressure on international bodies and their pressure on the Turkmen authorities can help him

If the US, Russia and OSCE had sent observers to Andrey’s trial, as the international human rights community appealed to them to do, perhaps the outcome would have been different. It appears that the west has traded away protection of human rights for access to hydrocarbons.”

The “trial” of Andrei Zatoka, well-known environmentalist and civic activist, began and ended on 29 October. As feared, after the flagrant trumping up of charges against the activist, Andrei was sentenced to five years imprisonment

Most human rights defenders believe the decision to initiate a criminal investigation into allegations of slander over Oleg Orlov’s remarks on the day of Natalya Estemirova’s murder has come from higher up