Memorial reports on its visit, together with Human Rights Watch, to South Ossetia and on violations of human rights and humanitarian norms in the military conflict zone

Statement from Russian Human Rights Organizations

A society in which those guilty of the death of people are not brought to justice, but are given awards or promoted, cannot live in safety.

Russia’s Human Rights Centre “Memorial” considers the killing of Magomed Yevloev, the owner of the opposition website Ingushetia.ru (http://ingushetiya.ru/ ) to be the latest act of State terror and a demonstrative and cynical crime

According to the website he owned Yevloev was taken away from the runway near the plane by law enforcement officers. The website was threatened with closure following an application from the Prosecutor who claimed that it had published an “extremist” article

Anna’s colleagues are convinced that there is a long way to go before the real organizers of her murder are brought to justice

Human Rights Watch reports that recent satellite images released by the UN program UNOSAT confirm the widespread torching of ethnic Georgian villages inside South Ossetia

The new textbook for Russian teachers of history presents Stalin as a “rational manager”, effectively justifies and downplays the scale of the Terror, and presents the murder of thousands of Polish prisoners of war as an “answer” to the killing of Red Army soldiers in the war of 1920

One of the main slogans of the protest was from the song by Alexander Galich which he wrote after Soviet and Warsaw Pact forces moved in to Czechoslovakia to crush the Prague Spring: “Citizens, our country is in danger. Our tanks are on foreign soil!”

“Our action is in memory of how 40 years ago seven people went out onto Red Square. That was a breath of freedom and a serious step towards overcoming our own fear. The fear is again appearing ..."

The judge criticized Khodorkovsky for not having gained a profession while imprisoned and used this as grounds for concluding that he wasn’t trying to reform

A great deal about the case was discussed in the world media in July, largely because this is an ominous precedent, with a person being convicted over remarks made in the Live Journal

Alexandr Kazulin, one of the leaders of the Belarusian opposition, has been released, hopefully for good, although this is as yet not quite clear

Human Rights Watch researchers have uncovered evidence that Russian aircraft dropped cluster bombs, banned by 107 countries, in populated areas in Georgia, killing at least 11 civilians and injuring dozens,

The numbers of people killed in South Ossetia are most probably much lower than the 2,000 claimed by Russia

The Ministry’s press service has stated that the reports in some media outlets of supposed participation of Ukrainian military instructors and servicing of air defence on Georgian territory are total lies

The Russian author of these ten points regarding the new war in the Caucuses makes some searing comments about the parallels with the Chechen Wars, State-supported propaganda and the need for a single approach in assessing similar situations

The European Court of Human Rights on Monday indicated to the Government of the Russian Federation interim measures under Rule 39 of the Rules of Court.

Open appeal from the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union

Please support this appeal initiated by Sergei Kovalev and other human rights defenders