Rights in Russia Rights in Russia

Our guest today is Zoia Svetova, renowned journalist and human rights activist. She continues to live and work in Moscow.  She is the author of several books, including Priznat’ nevinovnogo vinovnym [To Find the Innocent Guilty]. Her voice is perhaps one of the few authoritative oppositionist voices still heard in Russia today.  
This podcast was recorded on 26 March 2024.
My questions include:
When it became known that Russian troops had invaded Ukraine in 2022, could you ever have imagined such a thing happening?You decided to stay in Russia. Did you discuss with your family, your four adult children, whether to leave or stay in Russia?Can I ask you to tell us a little about your family? After all, you are part of Russia’s hereditary dissident aristocracy, if I may put it like that. Tell us about your parents, what you most remember about them, about their lives? Your husband was also involved in the dissident movement.  How did you meet? And how did you bring up your children, what were the main moral values you tried to pass on to them?When Putin became president in 2000, did you have any hopes?Was there a key episode when it became clear for you which direction his regime was heading?The title of this podcast, “Then and Now,” is associated with the fateful date of 24 February 2022. But there has since been another terrible date that will be a significant event in the perception of the world and of Russian public opinion  – 16 February this year. What was your first reaction when you learned of Aleksei Navalny’s death in the Polar Wolf penal colony.What did Navalny mean for Russia, what did he symbolise? And what did his death in prison mean for the future of Russia?You were at Aleksei’s funeral in Moscow. Could you share the mood that prevailed there, what you observed –  tell us about your impressions.Should other political prisoners in Russia now fear for their lives?Just recently, a presidential election was conducted in Russia. If I’m not mistaken, you were abroad at that time. Did you take part in the “Noon against Putin” protest? Did the protests bring any benefits? And is there any difference between such protests in Russia and abroad?Your sons Tikhon and Filip are engaged in interesting work abroad. Does the fact that Tikhon is on the register of foreign agents and is editor-in-chief of the Dozhd TV company, which has been declared an undesirable organization in Russia, affect your life in Moscow in any way?After the attack on Leonid Volkov, a leading member of Navalny’s team, in Vilnius, do you fear for your own children and other Russian oppositionists living outside Russia? What would have to happen in Russia for you to change your mind and leave the country?What needs to happen in Russia for your children and grandchildren to return home? What are your thoughts about the recent terrorist attack at Crocus City Hall in Moscow?  Do you think 22 March 2024 will be another milestone in the history of the Putin regime?

My guest today is Anastasia Burakova, a human rights lawyer and democratic activist from Russia. 
We are still in shock at the news of the murder of Aleksei Navalny in a high-security penal colony in the settlement of Kharp. 
Aleksei Navalny’s political star rose as a leader of the opposition to the Putin regime in 2011.  That year, 2011, played a significant part in the  political coming of age of  today’s guest - Anastasia Burakova, a Russian human rights lawyer and activist for democratic change in Russia - and influenced the trajectory of her professional life.
However, ten years later, in November 2021, Anastasia was forced to leave Russia. She moved to Georgia after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, where she founded the Ark Project (‘Kovcheg’). Initially, set up to offer help to exiled Russians because of their opposition to the war, over time, Ark’s activities have broadened.
This podcast was recorded on 22 February 2024.
My questions include:
I am haunted by two thoughts that never leave me now – the death in prison of Aleksei Navalny and the second year of war inUkraine. What thoughts have occupied you most this past week?In an interview almost one year ago, you talked about a ‘white rose’ of resistance in Russia. Are there grounds for optimism in Russia today?The journalist Elena Kostyuchenko wrote in her book about Russia: “Why did I ever think my life would be different?” Do you have an answer for her?Tell us a little about your childhood. Were there any key moments in your biography that led you to your choice of profession and the path you followed?You have said that the year 2011 played a big role in your own development. What does 2011 in Russia mean to you? What are your most vivid impressions of that year?You left Russia at the end of 2021, just 10 years later. What happened in the intervening years in the field of civic activism?To what extent did human rights and civic activism face new and more difficult challenges in the period leading up to the invasion of Ukraine? What defined the relationship of the authorities to civil society?Soon after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, you founded the Ark Project. What was the idea behind the project and who are the beneficiaries?Is there any real hope for the Russian opposition in exile? What can it really do? What do the countries that have welcomed Russian exiles have to gain from their presence? Aleksei Navalny from prison urged the Russian people to act. He proposed that people should go to the polling stations on the last day of the election, 17 March, at 12.00 noon local time, and stand in line outside the polling station in protest. Do you think there’s a chance that many will do this following his assassination in prison by the Russian authorities?What do you think the future holds for you? And what are your thoughts about the future of Russia?

Welcome to the fifteenth edition of our Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas. 
My guest today is Anna Karetnikova. Until recently, Anna Karetnikova lived and worked in Moscow.  In 2016, she was appointed lead analyst to the Federal Penitentiary Service – FSIN. Prior to that, she served for eight years as a member of the Public Oversight Commission (POC) in Moscow and worked closely with the human rights organisation “Memorial”.
Anna Karetnikova exemplified that rare combination in Russia of someone who was both a human rights activist and a government-appointed official working for the FSIN. For several years she pulled this off brilliantly. But just over a year ago, she was forced to leave Russia. The events that led to this decision and how she feels about life in exile are among the topics we will be talking about.
This podcast was recorded on 8 February 2024.
ou can also listen to the podcast on SoundCloud, Podcasts.com, Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts and YouTube. 
My questions include:
Before your appointment to the Federal Penitentiary Service, you worked in the Public Oversight Commission in Moscow. What were the functions of this commission and how did your work there lead to your appointment to the Federal Penitentiary Service?Did you have any interests or occupations from a young age which helped you decide to take up this kind of work?How did it happen that you were invited to join the FSIN? What did  your work there involve?  Is it true there is no such position as lead analyst in any other regional branch of the FSIN?How does the system of corresponding with political prisoners work? Do they really receive letters of support from people they don’t know? Do the authorities still allow this?Unlike many of your colleagues, acquaintances and friends in human rights organizations, you stayed in Russia after the Special Military Operation was launched on February 24th 2022? Was leaving Russia not an issue for you at that time?What changed in the FSIN system that prompted you to decide to leave Russia almost a year later?What was your reaction when you learned about the recruitment of lifers in the penal system to the Wagner private military company? What did it say about the attitude of the authorities both to the war and to society as a whole?What changes did you observe in the FSIN and in the regime to prisons and penal colonies after the start of the war?And in the treatment of prisoners? Were there problems, for example, with supplies? Or other issues? xould they still correspond with relatives and have visits from them?Would you say the numbers of political prisoners has increased since the start of the war?With your experience and knowledge of the penal system in Russia, what can you comment about the treatment of Aleksei Navalny in the penal colony? To what extent does his treatment differ from the treatment of other prisoners? And how?And Vladimir Kara-Murza? Could you comment on his recent transfer to the correctional colony No. 7 Omsk. You currently live in France. Why France?How do you see your future?  And the future of Russia?

My guests today are Mamuka Kuparadze, the founder of Studio Re in Tbilisi, which works to advance ‘people’s diplomacy’ through documentary film, and Aleksandr Pichugin, a Russian journalist, originally from Nizhny Novgorod, who left Russia with his family immediately after the announcement of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and started a new life in Tbilisi.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the flow of Russian citizens fleeing the war to Georgia has reached an unprecedented 100,000. That’s the size of two small Georgian cities such as Gori, for example.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, relations between Georgia and Russia have not been easy. There have been wars of secession, first in South Ossetia, then in Abkhazia, and their de facto removal from Georgian government control. And the culmination of these wars, we can say, took place 15 years later, in 2008, when Russia invaded Georgia and won a five-day war after which Russia “officially” recognized the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia (both are still considered by the international community as legitimate parts of Georgia. Georgia itself calls them Russian-occupied territories).
In this edition of ‘Then and Now’, we take a look at how Georgian society and government perceives these immigrants from Russia and how Russian immigrants live there.
The recording was made on 4 January 2024.
My questions include:
Aleksandr, what pushed you to such an important decision for yourself and your family? After all, it is not easy to start from scratch in a foreign country?Why Georgia? Did the visa system play a role in your decision?Did you find a place to live? A job? Tell us a little about how you solved such domestic problems and how you were received by Georgian society. Is there a sense of a separate ‘Russian world’ in Tbilisi?Mamuka, Studio Re recently released a short movie about how the local population feels about the flow of Russian immigrants into their country. What were the main findings of your research?How does the flow of Russians into Georgia affect the country’s economy?Against the background of extremely uneasy and tense relations with Putin’s Russia, how do the Georgian government and civil society feel about the presence of so many Russians on Georgian territory, Mamuka?Refugees from Ukraine have also come to Georgia. Aleksandr, is the presence of Ukrainians felt in your circles?The Georgian border service has denied entry to the country to several Russian citizens who are critical of Putin’s regime, such as Mikhail Fishman, journalist, presenter and analyst of TV Dozhd, and others. What is the explanation for this, Mamuka? What is the position of the country’s ruling party, the ‘Georgian Dream’, towards today’s Russia?How does it differ from the position of activists in civil society?Aleksandr, how did you in Georgia perceive the new flow of Russian immigrants, which began immediately after the announcement of mobilization on 22 October? Do you feel a difference in the motivation and goals of the first wave compared to the second?Has the war with Ukraine given rise to new anxieties on the part of Russia in Georgia, Mamuka?How do Russians in Georgia see their future? Have some already returned to Russia? How do you personally see your future, Aleksandr?

Welcome to the thirteenth edition of our Russian-language podcast Then & Now with me, Teresa Cherfas. 
My guest today is Lev Aleksandrovich Ponomarev. Lev Ponomarev trained and worked as a physicist in the USSR before devoting more time and energy to issues of human rights in the Soviet Union and subsequently in the Russian Federation. He was one of the founders of  « Memorial » in 1988, and soon became one of the foremost figures  in human rights in Russia. In the dying days of perestroika, Lev Ponomarev went into politics and in 1990 co-founded the opposition movement « Democratic Russia ». He was a People’s Deputy at the end of the Soviet era and a deputy of the first convocation of the State Duma in the new Russia after the collapse of the USSR in 1991. In 1997 he founded the not-for-profit « For Human Rights » and in 2007 he set up the « Foundation in Defence of Prisoners’ Rights ». He was a member of the Moscow Helsinki Group from 1996 until its closure last year. In 2019 his organisation « For Human Rights » was shut down by the authorities. On December 28, 2020, Lev Ponomarev’s name was in the first list of individuals designated as ‘media foreign agents’ by the Russian Justice Ministry.
The recording was made on 22 December 2023.
You can also listen to the podcast on our website, or on SoundCloud, Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Anchor and YouTube. 
My questions include:
Lev Aleksandrovich, where were you when you learned that Russia had launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine? Do you remember how you felt at that moment?If I’m not mistaken, you now live in Paris. Could you tell me how this came about?Your NGO « For Human Rights » was closed down in 2019 and a year later you yourself became a “Media – Foreign Agent”. How did you feel when all this was happening and why did the authorities do this?You have always been someone who warned about the dangerous developments of the Putin regime. Do you think you had insights that others did not? Does everyone agree with you now?What do you think was Boris Yeltsin’s biggest mistake?Presidential elections are scheduled for next March – although we already know that they will not be “free and fair”. What do you think civil society should do in the run-up to the election – and during the election itself?To what extent do people in emigration perceive things differently from those who stayed in Russia? Is this difference noticeable to you? How do you think it affects relations between those who have left Russia and those who remained?It is hard not to be pessimistic about human rights in the near future, not least because Russia’s war against Ukraine is still ongoing.  But in the longer term, are there grounds for optimism?

My guest today is Natalya Zyagina, head of the Moscow branch of Amnesty International shut down by the Russian authorities in 2022. Natalya Zvyagina has a long record as a Russian human rights activist. She is originally from the city of Voronezh, where she worked for many years in the Interregional Human Rights Group. Natalya has also worked at the Institute for Law and Public Policy, a non-profit organization based in Moscow, and at the Russian branch of Transparency International.
This recording was made on 30 November 2023.
In addition to our website, you can also listen to the podcast on SoundCloud, Podcasts.com, Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Anchor and YouTube. 
My questions include:
First of all, please tell us about your work in Voronezh. What prompted you to become involved in human rights work?In the 1990s Voronezh became one of the main centres of human rights activity in Russia, and many of Russia’s leading human rights defenders come from there. What do you attribute this to?In 2018, you took up the post of head of Amnesty International’s Moscow office. What were your expectations at that time? What was Amnesty’s role in Russia at that time? How did the Russian human rights community feel about the organisation?Looking back, how do you assess the change in the status of Aleksei Navalny, whose recognition as a prisoner of conscience was removed for a while, although now he is again recognised as such? And how important is Amnesty’s classification of people as “prisoners of conscience” for the Russian public and human rights community in general?In March 2022, the Russian media regulator blocked access to Amnesty International’s Russian-language website. What impact did this decision have on your work?In April of the same year Russian authorities removed the Amnesty’s registration as a representative office in Moscow. In addition to Amnesty’s office, the Russian Ministry of Justice closed the offices of 15 representative offices of foreign NGOs and foundations, including Human Rights Watch, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Heinrich Böll, Friedrich Naumann, Friedrich Ebert, and other organizations. The Justice Ministry said at the time that this was done “in connection with revealed violations of Russian law.” What was all this in fact about?At the time, Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, said that Amnesty would continue its work to document and expose human rights abuses in Russia despite the office closure. How easy was it for Amnesty to continue its work without a Moscow office? What has been your personal situation and that of other staff members since then?Where were you when Russia invaded Ukraine? Did the invasion of Ukraine come as a shock to you?Are the current extreme measures against human rights in Russia a result of the war? Or have the policies of the Putin regime been moving in this repressive direction anyway?After all these events, a new conflict has erupted in the Middle East. Has this had any impact on your work at Amnesty?How do you assess the events in Dagestan in relation to the war in the Middle East?Many human rights defenders have left Russia. What is life like for those who have remained in the country? Can they do any meaningful work at all?Recently, the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs drafted a bill that would require foreigners visiting Russia to declare their “loyalty” to the Russian authorities. What does this mean?How do you see the future of human rights work in Russia?