Simon and Serge‪i‬ Rights in Russia

This week our guest on the podcast is Anita Soboleva, lawyer, lecturer and researcher and associate professor. Anita formerly worked as chief lawyer at the NGO JURIX (Lawyers for Constitutional Rights and Freedoms). She has been a member of the Moscow region bar association since 2002. Until November 2019 Anita served two tersms as a member of the Presidential Council for Human Rights.

The podcast discusses the state of the third sector in Russia; the impact of the laws on "foreign agents" and "undesirable foreign organisations"; the current judicial system in Russia; the independence of the courts; judicial reforms; the impact of the Soviet traditions on the justice sytem; the significance of last year's constitutional changes and of the changes introduced to the Constitutional Court; and the future of human rights in Russia.

The podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on Rights in Russia [https://rightsinrussia.org/podcasts/], SoundCloud,  Spotify  and  iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: "Last weekend, Simon Cosgrove and I spoke with Anita Karlovna Soboleva, a lawyer, teacher and researcher working in the field of law. We talked, of course, about human rights work. Anita Soboleva compared human rights defenders of the end of the last century with those of today: "Nowadays, human rights work is done by people with a legal education, by specialists. These people are the best, they are highly motivated: There has been a professionalization of the nonprofit sector. This is what we dreamed of 20 years ago." Understandably, when discussing human rights work, we also touched on the topic of today's civil society in Russia and the prospects for some kind of reform in the country. "Civil society is not just about organisations we like very much. After all, civil society also includes nationalists and organisations set up by former members of the security forces. They are also part of society. Society is fragmented. Therefore, some part of society may be ready for some reforms, while another part may be ready for quite different reforms," Anita Karlovna rightly pointed out. In her personal experience the critical thinking of today's students is very developed and very different from what we would have seen in universities 15 years ago. But it's not all that simple: "The well-known fragmentation of education can't help but be alarming, when suddenly universities appear under specific ministries and start to train specialists for individual state bodies". It was important for us to talk to a highly professional lawyer, and it was sad to hear again about what is now happening to the legal system in the country, where 'the courts can now say that black is white and white is black'. Listen to Anita Soboleva, it's interesting."

Simon Cosgrove adds: If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.

This week our guests on the podcast are Irina Borogan and Andrei Soldatov, well-known Russian journalists, creators of the website Agentura.ru and authors of the books The New Nobility, The Red Web and The Compatriots.
The topics we discuss on the podcast include: journalism in contemporary Russia; journalists’s safety; the role of Russia’s secret services domestically and on the world stage; disinformation; the history of post-Soviet Russia; the influence of Soviet political culture; Navalny’s poisoning; Amnesty International and Navalny; whether there is an on-going political crisis in Russia; and the future of human rights in Russia.
The podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on Rights in Russia [https://rightsinrussia.org/podcasts/], SoundCloud,  Spotify  and  iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.
Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: “I like the way Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan write. I have read almost all their books: The New Nobility, The Red Web, and The Compatriots. They write in such a way that – frankly – I can’t tear myself away. Sometimes I didn’t want to wait for the Russian translation to come out, so I read the book in English. This was the case with their newest book. I first read The Compatriots: The Brutal and Chaotic History of Russia’s Exiles, Émigrés, and Agents Abroad and then got a copy of the Russian translation. At the very end of the book, along with the acknowledgements, I liked the authors’ heartfelt confession: “When we wrote this book we argued passionately, and sometimes very loudly, about every chapter.” In our new podcast Andrei and Irina didn’t argue at all, and expressed their stories and views quite mildly. And what they had to say, it must be said, was just as interesting, of course, as their books. Starting with the story of how they became journalists and ending with their assessment of investigative journalism in Russia today.
Simon Cosgrove adds: If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.

This week our guest on the podcast is the well-known journalist Vera Sergeevna Vasilieva. The topics we discuss on the podcast include: human rights journalism in Russia, political prisoners, the ‘foreign agent’ law, Radio Liberty, Aleksei Pichugin, Aleksei Navalny, other landmark court cases, recent amendments to the Russian constitution, crisis in Russia, atmosphere of hate, historical trends regarding human rights, the Russian judicial system, what the future may hold, and books by Vera Vasilieva.

The podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on Rights in Russia [https://rightsinrussia.org/podcasts/], SoundCloud,  Spotify  and  iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.
Sergei Nikitin writes: “The situation for journalists writing on human rights issues has become very complicated,” Vera Vasilieva told us. “Many of those websites and portals I used to collaborate with have been closed down and blocked. The field of activity is narrowing, there is no doubt about it.” She also told us how her career in human rights journalism began: “Many years ago I used to work for a popular science computer magazine and back in 2003, when the Yukos affair was just beginning, I wanted to form my own opinion about Alexei Pichugin. The first trial in his case was held behind closed doors, and the second trial on 4 April 2006 left me dumbfounded: the charges proved to be unsubstantiated.” It was then that Vera decided she would go regularly to observe such trials. And she also started to write for online human rights websites. Last Sunday, Simon Cosgrove and I talked to Vera about what she is working on now, what she is interested in, and what concerns her.
Simon Cosgrove adds: If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn’t seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week’s events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.

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