Evidence on the use of secret detention by Ukraine’s security services requires further investigation from the authorities.

The Russian authorities’ attitude to refugees fleeing ISIS falls short of the compassion these people deserve.

 

На фоне кризисной ситуации с правами человека в стране, сотрудничество Хьюман Райтс Вотч с российскими правозащитными организациями продолжает играть ключевую роль в отстаивании прав и свобод. English

Central and western Ukraine may have elected a president, but the southeast of the country is a war zone, in all but name.

 

‘NGO’ has become a dirty word in Russia. The organisations most committed to helping Russia develop a meaningful civil society have become pariahs, branded as ‘foreign agents.’ Under the tightened screws, we are asking the question: ‘Do NGOs in Russia have any future?’

Three years ago the indomitable Natalya Estemirova was murdered in Chechnya. Her killers remain at large, and arbitrary executions of oppositional figures have remained a tool of power across the North Caucasus. Here, Tatyana Lokshina, Alexander Cherkasov and Igor Kalyapin, three of Russia’s leading human rights defenders review a deteriorating situation, and how address it

Russia’s 9 time zones are often exploited by TV management to pull controversial programmes, but the internet has changed the rules of the game. A recent film about kidnap victims in Chechnya was shown in the Far East, but not in European Russia. The ensuing outcry and internet activity show that people have had enough of censorship, says Tanya Lokshina

In Chechnya there is official support for attacks on women when they are considered to have ‘flouted’ Islamic rules by not wearing a headscarf or covering up enough. Tanya Lokshina listened to some of the women’s despairing accounts.

On April 9 2010, after explosions in the Moscow metro killed 39 people, rumours were circulated of 1,000 ‘black widows’ who had been recruited by the militants. When the press published the names of 22, Tanya Lokshina of Human Rights Watch found that she knew some of these dangerous women : a seamstress whose real crime was being a human rights worker, a pious young mother whose husband had been tortured in the ‘6th Department’...

Tanya Lokshina, Russia researcher for Human Rights Watch, attended a recent demonstration in her professional capacity and was detained by the police three times in thirty minutes. She gives a graphic description of the evening’s events.