Human rights defenders On 17/7 four members of Pussy Riot were jailed for 15 days for disrupting the World Cup final. (BBC, 17/7) On 17/7 Council of Europe Commissioner Dunja Mijatovic called on Russia to release Oyub Titiev and spoke in favour of transferring the trial outside Chechnya. (Caucasian Knot, 17/7) On 17/7 the main prosecution witness in the trial of Oyub Titiev appeared on Chechen TV making accusations against Titiev, whose trial began on 18/7. (Caucasian Knot, 17/7; 18/7) Torture On 17/7 Aslan Yandiev, suffering from a long-term illness, was extradited to Russia and is at grave risk of torture and other ill-treatment and an unfair trial. (Amnesty International, 19/7) On 20/7 the Investigative Committee and Yaroslavl Prison Service said they had launched probes into a video purporting to show torture by prison guards. (RFE/RL, 20/7) Freedom of expression On 15/7 Krasnodar police seized the print run of the moloko+ almanac. Earlier Pavel Nikulin and Sofiko Arifdjanova, moloko+ journalists, were attacked. (Caucasian Knot, 17/7) On 17/7 Ilya Davydov got an 18-month suspended sentence for jokes allegedly offensive to Muslims. (The Moscow Times, 17/7) Right of assembly On 17/7 authorities in Nalchik banned a rally in support of the study of native languages. (Caucasian Knot, 17/7) On 18/7 17 demonstrators against the increase in pensionable age were arrested in St. Petersburg. (The Moscow Times, 19/7) ECtHR On 17/7 the ECtHR said Russia had violated five articles of the human rights convention in its arrest and conviction of Pussy Riot members in 2012 and violated Article 2 in its investigation into journalist Anna Politkovskaya's murder. (BBC, 17/7) Crimea / Ukraine On 16/7 Roman Ternovsky was sentenced to two and a half years’ imprisonment for involvement in his native Ukraine in Right Sector and posting material on Facebook about the organisation. (Human Rights in Ukraine, 16/7) On 17/7 at a court in Rostov-on-Don the trial of Ukrainian citizen Pavlo Hryb on terrorism charges began. (RFE/RL, 17/7) On 19/7 police searched the home of Gulsum Aliyeva, daughter of detained Crimean Tatar Muslim Aliyev charged with membership of Hizb ut-Tahrir. Aliyeva was taken away for questioning. (RFE/RL, 19/7; Human Rights in Ukraine, 19/7) |
