Vasily Aleksanian has been released from custody after people raised the 1.7 million USD bail demanded. Former Yukos lawyer Svetlana Bakhmina remains in prison with her new-born baby despite calls for mercy. Yury Budanov, however, who murdered an 18-year-old girl is about to be released early

The decision to stop broadcasting from 1 January 2009 on national FM channels will affect the BBC, Voice of America and “Radio Svoboda / Azadlyg”

"As the murders of Russian journalists go unsolved, there are increasing signs that the impunity of Russia’s contract killers is not accidental"

Russia’s Supreme Court has turned down two appeals against decisions by the Prosecutor General to extradite men to Uzbekistan despite the fact that the European Court has halted any extradition in both cases pending examination

An appeal to begin direct negotiations to ensure a real ceasefire, safety for the civilian population, and the possibility for those displaced to return to their homes

The Court found that Russia was in violation of four articles of the European Convention on Human Rights, including Article 3 (prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment).

The European Court of Human Rights found violations of the right to life, not only in the fact of Ruslan Kazumov’s enforced disappearance, but in the Russian authorities’ failure to conduct an effective investigation

This appalling example of the methods used by the FSB and law enforcement agencies in Russia to recruit agents or fabricate charges makes the amendments planned to the Russian Criminal Code even more worrying

All those whose actions are directed “against the security of the Russian Federation, including its constitutional system, sovereignty, territorial and state integrity” will become traitors and spies in Russia if new amendments to the Criminal Code are passed.

Speech by renowned human rights defender and Head of the Russian “Memorial” Society to mark the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on 10 December 2008

On Sunday police and riot squads detained a large number of opposition activists trying to hold “Marches of those in dissent [marsh niesoglasnych] in Moscow and St. Petersburg

Students, staff and graduates of the renowned European University in St. Petersburg have sent an appeal addressed to President Medvedev over the removal of vital and irreplaceable archival material on the Stalinist Terror

20-year-old Salekh Azizov’s headless body was found by police on 6 December in a Moscow region.forest Human rights defenders are convinced that the authorities are letting radicals see how far they can go

This was the first case where Russia went against the Court which had applied Rule 39 which halts any expulsion. It has not been the last

The statement said said the raid, days before the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights "sends out a negative signal".

Lawyers of the defendants accused of involvement in the journalist’s murder say that Rustam Makhmudov, the alleged killer, could have hidden from the law with the help of forged documents issued by the State Security Service

The Moscow City Court has passed a ruling allowing incurably ill Vasily Aleksanian to be released on bail of 50 million roubles (near 2 million US dollars)

Aware of the full danger of the course chosen by the Russian authorities, we condemn their repressive actions and fully endorse the demands of our human rights colleagues in Russia and Belarus to put an immediate stop to the persecution of “Memorial” in St. Petersburg.

The Court found that the right to life had been violated in the first seven cases (violation of Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights);

The Russian government should immediately investigate a police raid on Memorial, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International both said on Friday