It found that the right to life has been violated in respect of the Muslim Nenkayev, Lecha Basayev and Lema Dikayev who must be presumed dead and that the Russian authorities had failed to conduct effective investigations

Human rights and civic organizations from all over Russia are demanding that the Presidential Decree creating a Commission “on history” be revoked as being against the constitutional prohibition on censorship and State ideology.

Do they really hope in the Kremlin that such a law will force everybody to tremble and avoid “indelicate” facts? As if anyone in their right mind would deny the crucial role placed by the USSR in the victory, however the scope of this law is much broader

Memorial’s statement on the new Commission for Countering Attempts to Falsify History to the Detriment of Russia’s Interests, and on what kind of falsification harms the interests of all of us

A healthy tree cannot sprout from diseased roots. Our roots are our history, and they are rotten.

President Medvedev has signed a Decree “On a Commission under the President of the Russian Federation for Countering Attempts to Falsify History to the Detriment of Russia’s Interests”.

A group of Russian human rights defenders have issued a public statement protesting against the arrest in Yekaterinburg of civic activist Alexei Sokolov, involved in defending prisoners’ rights.

Interview with the Ukrainian academic Yevhen Tsybulenko who has lived in Estonia since 2003 about the Ukrainian minority in the country, relations with and developments in Russia which Professor Tsybulenko views with concern

Memorial’s Arseny Roginsky talks about the difficulty of accessing historical documents on repression from Russia’s state archives, and about a new flowering of admiration for Joseph Stalin, which is encouraged by the Kremlin

A Moscow court has again upheld the Military Prosecutor’s refusal to consider applications to rehabilitate victims of this terrible crime. There remains one final avenue before Memorial is forced to turn to Strasbourg

The disks containing invaluable historical information which Memorial Centre had collected over 20 years illegally removed by the Prosecutor’s Office have been returned

The Ukrainian Educational Centre worked for over 10 years in complete accordance with the law, and the reasons given for shutting it down raise many questions

Moscow claims that despite the large number of Ukrainians living in the Russian Federation, there are “virtually no requests” from parents or civic organizations to open Ukrainian-language schools

A statement from PASOS concerning intimidation of NGOs in Moldova

For republics of the former USSR seeing fit to doubt the results of the Second World War, the draft law envisages comprehensive measures

The Coordinator of Charter 97 has rejected an invitation to attend events connected with the EU Summit in Prague. He believes the invitation issued to Lukashenko to be a grave mistake

The EU’s counterproductive attempt to reach out to Europe’s last dictator. Easing international pressure on Aleksandr Lukashenko could allow him to continue human rights abuses.

On Thursday 23 April, the European Court of Human Rights unanimously condemned Russia for the enforced disappearance of 13 men in different locations across Chechnya between November 2001 and March 2004

On 16 April Ukraine’s Prosecutor General ignored warnings from the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union about the human rights situation in Moldova and extradited two people accused of involvement in the protests of 7 April (+ appeal from UHHRU)

The Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union is warning against the planned extradition to Moldova of Gabriel Stati and Auren Marinescu who are accused of trying to seize power during the anti-government protests in Chişinău (Kishinev).