Vakhtang Komakhidze was an investigative journalist in Georgia with a nose for a story and a record of annoying the authorities. His revelations of official corruption ended in the death threats which forced him to seek asylum in Switzerland. Robin Oisín Llewellyn talked to him about the limits of
Court scrutiny of the British security services is to be welcomed; we can't debate properly our security needs without openness.
For the last 12 months Russian cities have witnessed regular demonstrations to protest restrictions on the right to assemble enshrined in Article 31 in Russia’s Constitution. 31 May was no exception in Moscow, with particularly brutal police involvement. Strategy-31 is spreading: will the authorit
In their remote forest republic 400 miles east of the Moscow, the pagan Mari people are once again being harassed by the authorities. While the administrative lever used today is different — charges of “extremism” — their approach is more than reminiscent of the way their Soviet counterparts dealt
The biggest crime in the U.S. criminal justice system is that it is a race-based institution where African-Americans are directly targeted and punished in a much more aggressive way than white people.
The imprisonment of military researcher Igor Sutyagin for alleged espionage has long troubled Russian human rights campaigners, writes Zoya Svetova. He is now free, but only after agreeing to agree he was a spy. Those familiar with Russian prisons will understand why he acted as he did, but he fac
At the recent Kinotavr film festival — "Russia's Cannes" — the main competition featured no less than three films dealing with the hitherto ignored plights of Russia’s migrant workers. For various reasons, all three films fell short of painting a realistic picture of the situation. But their produ
On 15 July 2009 Natasha Estemirova was kidnapped outside her flat in Grozny, bundled into a car, driven away and shot. One year later Tanya Lokshina still grieves for her, reflecting how difficult it is to come to terms with her death
With hustings for the Labour Party Leadership well underway, the five candidates have been busy battling to distance themselves from the era of Blair and Brown. But what have they had to say about electoral reform, civil liberties, human rights and Iraq, and how does each of their respective votin
On 12 July, the judge found Andrei Erofeev and Yurii Samodurov, organisers of the exhibition Forbidden Art – 2006, guilty of inciting hatred and enmity, and insulting human dignity. Samodurov was fined 200,000 roubles, and Erofeev 150,000 (some $12,000 in all). But they have not been sent to priso
Three years ago an exhibition at Moscow’s Sakharov Centre of previously banned work entitled Forbidden Art led to the trial of its curator Andrei Erofeev and the director of the Centre, Yuri Samodurov. The prosecutors want them sentenced to three years in prison for ‘debasing the religious beliefs
The accusations against Khodorkovsky have collapsed now that two senior establishment figures have testified. He may still be found guilty. But the absurdity of this trial is eroding public confidence in Putin’s regime.
