Word: russian
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...earlier generation could only dream of such freedom. Still, Kondaurov's feeling of claustrophobia - what Victoria Webb of Amnesty International describes as "the shrinking space for individual voices in Russia" - now appears to be widely shared. This year, Stanislav Dmitrievsky was prosecuted and saw his human-rights group, the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, closed down after its newsletter reprinted speeches by Chechen separatist leaders. Amnesty International contends that shuttering the society "appears to be the latest move in a carefully calculated strategy to get rid of an organization that has been outspoken on behalf of victims of human-rights violations...
...highly controversial legislation. One law requires all nongovernmental organizations (ngos) to reregister with the state and submit detailed plans about their activities; a second revises an earlier law that attempts to control political extremism. (Both were used against Dmitrievsky.) Putin has said that the extremism law will improve Russian security in an era of terrorism, while Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov asserts that the ngo legislation is actually less restrictive than similar laws in France, Finland and Israel. Foreign groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch that have reregistered say the process is cumbersome and bureaucratic, though...
...tragedy. His crime: holding an unauthorized rally. In early October, Manfred Nowak, a United Nations rapporteur on torture, was forced to postpone a fact-finding trip to Chechnya and the northern Caucasus after he was told that his intention to visit detention facilities unannounced and interview detainees would contravene Russian law. A human-rights activist in Ingushetia had her nose broken when a demonstration to commemorate Politkovskaya was dispersed by police. Dmitrievsky's organization was shut down. "October had me holding my head in my hands," says Allison Gill, who heads the Moscow office of Human Rights Watch...
...anyone noticed? Some dissidents complain that, now that the cold war is over, Russia can get away with anything. "At least in the Soviet Union times there was a steady drumbeat of people in the West talking about the problem. Today, lots of Russian activists feel isolated," says Gill. That's not to say there's no support; the European Union and the Council of Europe hold regular discussions about human-rights issues with Russian authorities, and Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, recently raised the matter of Khodorkovsky's imprisonment directly with Putin, saying the conditions of the oil boss...
...ally on handling Iran and North Korea, human rights and freedom of speech are no longer at the top of the West's agenda. Some, including Merkel's predecessor, Gerhard Schröder, are quick to defend Putin; in his recent memoirs, Schröder described the Russian President as "a flawless democrat." "It's frustrating that some European leaders hold this view," says Grigory Pasko, a former navy captain, journalist and environmental campaigner who in 2001 was sentenced to four years in jail on treason charges, and released in 2003. "You would hear less of this sort of thing...