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...Soviet times, dissidents had to smuggle their news and thoughts to a wider audience through surreptitious meetings with foreign reporters or crudely printed tracts. Today, any blogger with a grievance can become a dissident, and the Internet is the new samizdat. And in the past two years alone, Russians have lodged almost 20,000 individual grievance cases at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France; some of the most significant relate to abuses in Chechnya. "Yes, we're pushed to the kitchen again - but this kitchen is so much bigger than the one we used to have," says...
...fell afoul of the Kremlin by taking an independent political stand and lost everything. Yukos has been dismembered, and Khodorkovsky, 43, who is serving an eight-year sentence in a Siberian jail on fraud charges he vigorously disputes, has become a symbol of the political nature of Russian justice. Before being jailed, he spoke to a newspaper about the aspirations of his compatriots: "They need democracy, because these are people who don't want to feel uncomfortable when talking to the police, these are people who want to watch whatever it is they want to watch on television...
Vladimir Ryzhkov Independent member of the Russian parliament He knows his attempt to unite fractious democrats in a new liberal opposition party has failed, admits the politician, 40. Also, new rules "make it impossible to have a new political party registered, unless it is endorsed by the Kremlin," he says. He will probably lose his seat in the Duma in the next election because legislation has been introduced banning independent candidates. Still, he is proud of what he's accomplished. "Today, I'm a responsible statesman, and I do all I can to serve my constituency and my country. Tomorrow...
Oleg Panfilov Founder, Center For Journalism In Extreme Situations A secretary of the Russian Union of Journalists, 50, he launched his group six years ago to provide protection for media workers. "On average, 150 journalists a year are brutally physically assaulted in Russia. There are few in the Moscow media who dissent now. They have lined up to conform." Panfilov says it's a different picture in the provinces where reporters take risks in the face of physical threats and professional sanctions, although printers are often too scared to print local newspapers: "The CJES is hearing stories of intimidation...
Stanislav Dmitrievsky Russian-Chechen Friendship Society Outraged by Russian policy in Chechnya, Dmitrievsky, 40, launched his society in Nizhni Novgorod in 2000 with the aim of helping victims of the war. He also started a regular newsletter, which once reprinted speeches by Chechen separatist leaders. A local court handed him a two-year suspended sentence in February on charges of inciting racial hatred, and the group was officially shut down in October. He's appealing the verdict to the Supreme Court. "They're trying to push us underground," he says, "but we'll keep working. We must keep telling society...