Russia 100527 Basic Political Developments

Moscow Times: Softer Jail Rules Proposed for Ill Suspects

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/softer-jail-rules-proposed-for-ill-suspects/406910.html
27 May 2010

By Alexander Bratersky

Stung by the high-profile deaths of two ill prisoners in pretrial detention, prison officials have proposed that suspects diagnosed with one of 40 illnesses remain at liberty while investigators build cases against them.

Vladislav Tsaturov, who oversees detention facilities for the Federal Prison Service, said in an interview published Wednesday that his agency has drafted legislation that would allow judges to grant freedom to seriously ill suspects.

The 40 illnesses that would qualify a detainee for freedom include tuberculosis and advanced AIDS and cancer, he told Rossiiskaya Gazeta.

Current law allows judges to set free seriously ill convicts, while jailed suspects are easy targets for corrupt law enforcement officials, who withhold medical treatment while pressing for confessions.

Maria Kannabikh, a member of the Public Chamber and head of the Federal Prison Service's Public Council, praised the initiative but voiced disappointment that it had taken the death of two ill suspects, Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky and businesswoman Vera Trifonova, to bring it about.

“We paid an expensive price for those proposals,” Kannabikh told The Moscow Times.

Magnitsky, 37, who had acute pancreatitis, died in a Moscow pretrial detention center in November after reportedly being denied medical assistance. President Dmitry Medvedev reacted by firing 20 senior prison officials.

Trifonova, 53, who had a severe form of diabetes and other ailments, died of heart failure in a Moscow detention facility last month after prison officials, the lead investigator in her case and a judge denied her access to medical assistance.

A senior investigator fired in connection with Trifonova's death returned to work Wednesday, Interfax reported. But the official, Valery Ivarlak, a department head with the Moscow regional branch of the Investigative Committee, remains under investigation, Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin told Interfax.

A Moscow regional court ruled Wednesday that Trifonova should have been released because of her poor health, Interfax reported.

In another instance of an ill suspect being denied freedom, it took two years of court hearings and fierce international pressure before authorities agreed to release former Yukos vice president Vasily Alexanyan in December 2008 on bail of 50 million rubles ($1.6 million). Alexanyan had cancer and AIDS.

Human rights campaigners have called for legislation allowing freedom for ill suspects since 2002, said Andrei Babushkin, who regularly visits detention facilities as head of the Committee for Civil Rights, a public watchdog.

“It only became clear to the authorities that something had to be done after the cases of Magnitsky and Trifonova,” he said.

He said earlier stages of cancer also should be included in the proposed legislation. “You shouldn’t wait until the last stage of cancer. The speed at which the cancer spreads should be the key factor,” he said.

Several hundred suspects currently being held in detention facilities meet the criteria for release under the proposed legislation, he said. About 130,000 people are locked up in pretrial detention facilities around the country, according to the Federal Prison Service.

RIA: Amnesty accuses G20 of failing on human rights

http://en.rian.ru/society/20100527/159177765.html
11:0527/05/2010

G20 countries have a worse record on human rights that country's outside the organization, Amnesty International said in its annual report on human rights abuse published on Thursday.

The document details the state of human rights in 159 countries in 2009, paying attention to discrimination on racial, religious issues, juridical injustice and political persecution worldwide, along with the others issues.

According to the report, 42% of the G20 countries have political prisoners, while in other countries the figure is 30%.

Speaking in London as Amnesty presented its report, acting Secretary General Claudio Cordone said that such a situation was inadmissible for the states staking a "claim to global leadership".

He said seven states out of G20 had not signed up to the International Criminal Court (ICC), the legal body under which crimes can be prosecuted anywhere in the world.

Cordone added that the U.S., China, Russia, India, Turkey, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia had not confirmed their willingness to participate in the international judiciary and had "deliberately undermined international justice efforts."

"All governments, but especially those of the G20, which claim a greater role in global leadership, should be held accountable for whether their policies translate into tangible improvements in the lives of the world's poor," Amnesty's acting chief said.

Cordone touched upon the "global justice gap" in Georgian-Russian conflict in 2008 saying none of the sides was brought to justice. "Neither Russia nor Georgia had brought anyone to account by the end of the year, and 26,000 people were still unable to return home," he said.

According to Cordone, Amnesty's report proves that the "human rights movement is itself becoming more global and diverse, connecting ever better across borders and disciplines in pursuit of a comprehensive human rights project".

LONDON, May 27 (RIA Novosti)

Moscow Times: Amnesty International Gives Medvedev Failing Marks on Human Rights

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/amnesty-international-gives-medvedev-failing-marks-on-human-rights/406902.html
27 May 2010

By Natalya Krainova

President Dmitry Medvedev has failed to deliver on his promise to uphold civil society and protect human rights activists, Amnesty International said Wednesday as it unveiled its annual global report on rights abuses.

"In 2009, we saw steps like President Medvedev speaking to civil society, on the other hand we also saw [Chechen human rights activist Natalya] Estemirova abducted from the street in broad daylight and killed," said Nicola Duckworth, director of Amnesty's Europe and Central Asia Program.

"This clearly shows things are not right," she said at a news conference.

She said Russia's law enforcement system and courts were weak and unable to bring human rights violators to justice.

"The legal system seems utterly ineffective in prosecuting those who are responsible for attacks on human rights activists, journalists and lawyers," Duckworth said.

Frederica Behr, Amnesty's expert on Russia, said Medvedev acknowledged that human rights activists faced problems working in Russia during a meeting attended by Amnesty representatives in November.

"But these are words, and we want to see actions," Behr said.

"Unfortunately, in 2009, the absence of respect for civil society was evident," she added.

Amnesty faulted authorities for bringing "criminal charges against human rights activists to limit their freedom of speech," banning opposition and gay pride rallies, failing to reduce a "permanently high number" of hate crimes and violating human rights in the North Caucasus.

Duckworth also accused Russia and Georgia of failing to conduct a full investigation of violations committed during the war for South Ossetia in August 2008.

Positive developments were limited to a decision by the Supreme Court to extend the moratorium on the death penalty and an improvement in the public monitoring of detention centers, Duckworth and Behr said.

Amnesty criticized Russia for failing to convict anyone yet in the killings of human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov, gunned down in January 2009, and opposition journalist Anna Politkovskaya, whose 2006 murder case fell apart after a jury cleared four suspects in February 2009.

Amnesty also slammed a Moscow court's decision to fine Oleg Orlov, head of Memorial, a human rights group, for accusing Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov of human rights abuses.

Kommersant/Russia Today: Russia is included in the amnesty

http://rt.com/Top_News/Press/eng.html
by Andrey Kozenko

Amnesty International indicated that, in some aspects, things are looking up for Russian.

Today the international human rights organization, Amnesty International will present its annual report on global human rights violations. From the report, it follows that in the eyes of the Western human rights activists, Russia has for the first time in the last several years transitioned from being a rogue state to one that is criticized on an equal level with the United States, China and even some European countries. However, Amnesty continues to insist that Russia has an ineffective legal system and “authorities are unable to prevent prosecutions of human rights activists, journalists, and state opposition members.”

The Amnesty International report consists of a 550-page list of violations of human rights and freedoms around the globe. Traditionally, Russia has been the central figure in these reports. Moreover, in the last two years, a special memorandum was added, in which recommendations for improving the situation were made for the Russian authorities. This time, however, (the report outlines events of December 2008 through December 2009) Russia was only named as one of the countries where human rights violations are serious and are systematic in nature.

Read more

The United States, which despite Barack Obama’s promises has not closed the Guantanamo Bay prison, as well as China, were people are sentenced to death for nonviolent crimes, were placed in the same category as Russia. European states, where in the last year Amnesty International has observed a sharp increase in xenophobic and racist sentiments, have also managed to become some of the most criticized countries. “Powerful states put themselves above the law, their policies are more important than the rights of their citizens,” Nicola Duckworth, head of Amnesty International's Europe and Central Asia department, said in summarizing the report.

Amnesty International is an independent, non-governmental organization which was founded in Great Britain in 1961. It is privately funded. The organization monitors human rights violations all over the world, and prepares annual summary reports as well as special reports on problems in select countries.

Being a human rights activist, an independent journalist or an opposition activist in Russia is life-threatening -- this was established by the report’s authors as Russia’s main problem. In the year which is covered in the report, lawyer Stanislav Markelov, journalist Anastasia Baburova, Chechen human rights activists and community leaders Natalia Estemirova, Zarema Sadulaeva, and Alik Dzhabrialov were killed. Independent journalist Malik Akhmedilov was killed in Dagestan. In March 2009, Lev Ponomarev, leader of the For Human Rights movement, was beaten by a group of unknown men. Yekaterinburg human rights activist Aleksey Sokolov, who was named by Amnesty as a “prisoner of conscience” (Kommersant covered the story on May 21), was detained in May of last year.

“The Russian authorities are unable to prevent these prosecutions or investigate the ones which have already occurred,” Fredricka Ber, an Amnesty International researcher in Russia, told Kommersant. “The guilty party has only been found in the case of Markelova and Baburova. Their trial will test Russian government’s respect toward its citizens.”

The report mentions Sergey Magnitsky, a Hermitage Capital lawyer who died in a pre-trial detention center, and specifies that “Russia’s legal procedures often did not correspond to the international fair trial norms,” and that the trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev “could have been politically motivated.”

According to the report’s authors, the only thing playing in Russia’s favor is the fact that it had renewed the moratorium on the death penalty in December of last year.

“We see that President Medvedev is taking the steps to meet the civil society half way. But everything that he says about human rights continues to be nothing but words; therefore, our hopes in Mr. Medvedev have yet to be justified,” said Ber.

“Even the moratorium on the death penalty is tricky, because there is an entire system of extrajudicial killings,” said the head of the Memorial Human Rights Center, Oleg Orlov. “The pressure is mounting, and last year, with the series of killings, was most frightening.”

“The situation with human rights is critical, no matter how you look at it,” said Aleksandr Brod, a member of the Public Chamber. “But there are signs of improvement. Our opinion is heard by the president, human rights activists are becoming in demand by the authorities, and both of these things are a trend. I hope that Amnesty acknowledges this.”

Read the article on newspaper's website (in Russian)

Georgian Daily: Russian Defense Ministry Mulls Setting Up National Guard-Type Units in Regions and Republics

http://georgiandaily.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18744&Itemid=132

May 27, 2010

Paul Goble

Vienna, May 26 – “Rumors are circulation in Russia’s Defense Ministry” that Moscow intends to support the appearance of “regional military units,” entities that could provide employment for demobilized officers and a cash savings for the central government but that might, should the center weaken again, create new problems, a Moscow analyst says.

In an article on the “Nasha Versiya” portal, Ruslan Gorevoy says that up to now, this possibility of an “alternative” form of military formation “is being considered as an experiment” in the ministry; “but,” he adds, “certain republics and oblasts will be in a position to make the first steps toward the creation of their own military units.”

The notion of creating such forces, the analyst says, “at first glance appears absurd, but people in the know explain” that it is a very real proposal because Moscow wants to save money by reducing the size of the officer corps but to retain the services of these professionals if needed (versia.ru/articles/2010/may/26/alternativnye_regionalnye_boevye_podrazdeleniya). 

It is “no secret,” Gorevoy continues, that the first places these units are being formed are in the North Caucasus. A defense ministry expert says that there are already all the preconditions necessary for such a step: The Caucasians “prefer to serve at home,” and the high command isn’t as opposed to that as its Soviet predecessors were.

Many officers being demobilized, given the relatively small size of their pensions, are threatened with poverty, and the formation of such units would not only give them additional income and income from the regional rather than the federal service but ensure that their services would be available, the expert continued.

Moreover, he continued, “analogous formations could appear also in Chelyabinsk, Sverdlovsk, and Orenburg oblasts, where Duma deputy and Don Cossack Ataman Viktor Vodolatsky suggests they could perform a role much like the Cossacks aspire to, providing backup for the militia and also patriotic training for the young.

According to Gorevoy, ministry experts “consider that the risk of insubordination” to Moscow commands by such units is “extremely small.” That might have been possible in the 1990s, they say, but “not now” – although they do not address the question of what might happen if the currently “strong central power” were to weaken again.

The ministry experts, the “Novaya Versiya” commentator says, are currently examining the national guard system in the United States as well as regionally-based forces in Norway and Switzerland as possible models for what the Russian Federation might do. And they are also looking at national precedents for such formations.

Some regional forces existed under Peter I, and others were created during the Napoleonic wars. More recently, “there were attempts” to create such units after World War II, when Moscow took steps to create “regional military units” not directly subordinate to Moscow but to “local centers” in “unstable” places like the Baltics and Western Ukraine.

And still more recently, “at the beginning of the 1990s,” Tatarstan President Mintimir Shaimiyev and Sverdlovsk Governor Eduard Rossel sought to create such units, but they did not receive “support from the Ministry of Defense.” And as far as most people were concerned, the idea was “forgotten.”

But it is being recalled now because of the major reforms of the Russian military that Moscow is seeking to carry out. And it is gaining support because officers see this as a way of avoiding a tragic situation like the one that faced many former officers when the Soviet military was downsized by Nikita Khrushchev.

Gorevoy notes that any such units formed “will not have nuclear weapons” or other advanced systems. Consequently, “they will not be capable of developing into a complete military force.” Moreover, the chances that they could be used for illegal purposes like raider attacks are “not high” since they will be subordinate to both the defense ministry and the regions. 

Georgian Daily: Nearly Half of Russia’s Draft-Age Cohort Need Medical Checks, Defense Ministry Says

http://georgiandaily.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18741&Itemid=72

May 27, 2010

Paul Goble

Vienna, May 25 – The Russian defense ministry said yesterday that almost half of those who have passed through the draft commissions will be subject to additional medical screening because of health problems, but soldiers’ rights activists say the real number is even higher and that many too sick to serve will nonetheless be drafted in order to meet government quotas.

Moreover, these activists say, the ministry’s proposed solution to this problem – extending the age of exposure to the draft to 30 – will lead to other problems, including greater corruption because older potential inductees will be more settled, have more funds, and be more inclined to offer bribes to avoid service, a possibility some in the ministry may be counting on.

In an article in today’s “Novyye izvestiya,” Nadezhda Krasilova reports that the defense ministry has announced that approximately 71,000 young people called up in the spring draft have been inducted but that Moscow hopes to draft an additional 270,000 during this half-year cycle (www.newizv.ru/news/2010-05-25/126944/).

Of the 155,000 young people the draft commissions have talked to so far, some 67,000 – or “almost half of the contingent,” Krasilova points out – have been send for medical examination because of concerns about the state of their health, examinations that may lead some of them to being deferred and the size of the real draft pool thus reduced.

A major reason the defense ministry is concerned is that during 2009, “only 68 percent of the citizens who appeared before draft commissions were considered to be fit for military service without limitations or with [only] insignificant limitations.” And another is that “more than half of those already called up have various health limitations.”

The poor state of health of these young Russians means that the ministry cannot send them to military units where the physical requirements of service are higher. Among those are the air force, the forces of the interior ministry, and the like. And Krasilova adds, doctors sent 86,400 subject to the draft to medical facilities for observation and treatment.

Many of these soldiers needed such a serious course of treatment that it could not be completed in the course of one draft cycle. In the fall of 2009, for example, there were 2,219 such people, up from 1,184 the year before. And in the majority of cases, the young people involved were being seen by medical experts for the first time ever.

Valentina Melnikova, a leader of the Union of Committees of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia, told the Moscow newspaper that “in fact, the number of ill young people was much larger” than the defense ministry reports, adding that “in reality” officials should have sent all the draftees for such testing if there was any question about their medical histories.

She said that the defense ministry in order to fulfill “the plan” might very well take in even those individuals whom medical examination had identified as unfit for service, and she suggested that defense officials will make promises that these individuals will receive medical treatment once in the military, promises that may not in fact be kept.

These failures, first at the time of the draft itself and then in the first stages of military life, help to explain, Melnikova continued, why the health problems of draftees are often exacerbated rather than cured by commanders, health problems that may result in permanent disability or even death.

Melnikova also pointed to the difficulties the draft presents to young people, especially those from rural areas, who if they “leave a job, lose it forever,” something that makes them reluctant to take the steps, including those that would protect their own health and well-being, that would in fact make them fit to go into the army and do just that.

The “Novyye izvestiya” article also quoted Vitaly Tsymbal, the head of the military economic section of the Moscow Institute of the Economics of the Transitional Period about the defense ministry’s plan to draft people as old as 30 in order to ensure that the draft quotas are in fact met.

Tsymbal points out that “unlike a school graduate, by the age of 30, people as a rule have a stable place of work and a satisfactory wage or salary. Such people will be able to buy their way out of service.” And thus, behind the desire to meet quotas, some in the ministry may see this step as creating new opportunities for corrupt officials to enrich themselves. 

Georgian Daily: Declining Migration within Russia Undermining Country’s Economic Future: Social Chamber Official

http://georgiandaily.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18745&Itemid=72
May 27, 2010

Paul Goble

Vienna, May 26 – Migration within the Russian Federation has fallen significantly and now stands at level it was in 1897, a figure that reflects popular inertia, bureaucratic obstacles and shortages of housing stock but one that is simultaneously leading to more immigration from abroad and slower economic growth at home, according to a leader of the Social Chamber.

In an article in this week’s “Profil,” Leonid Davydov, a political scientist who heads that body’s Commission on Regional Development and Local Self-Administration, argues that “the lack of internal migration remains a serious brake on the path of the economic development of Russia” (profile.ru/items/?item=30238).

Davydov notes that this year represents a triune anniversary in that regard: the 150th since the end of serfdom in Russia in 1861, the 35th since the mass distribution of passports to collective farmers in 1976, and the 20th since the ban on the residential registration system or “propiska” in 1991.

The first of these events is known to all, he writes. The second seems hard now to believe: “Only 35 years ago, a third of Soviet residents did not have the legal opportunity to move about the country.” And the third “jubilee” is simply “laughable” given the continuing “administrative barriers to the free movement of people.”

They have “not disappeared anywhere,” and at least partially as a result, “the scale of internal migration [within the Russian Federation] has fallen 2.5 times over the last 20 years,” leaving Russia with one of the least mobile populations in advanced countries: In the US, people change their residence 13 times, in Britain, seven; but in Russia, only 1.5 times over a lifetime.

“It is difficult to overstate the importance” of internal migration for economic development, Davydov continues, all the more so at a time when Russia is experiencing demographic decline and economic problems in many parts of the country, problems that should lead Russians to move from one place to another.

Indeed, the regional specialist says, “the shifting of citizens from depressed territories with growing unemployment into more well-off areas is the only means of preserving the economic potential of the latter without massive attraction of a work force from abroad,” whose presence in Russia entails its own set of problems.

Demographers talk about “several flows” of internal migration within Russia, but “the two key directions of migration [now] as in the 1970s-1990s are from the village to the city and the regions to the Moscow agglomeration. According to surveys, more than 55 percent of those who want to move want to go to Moscow, with another 20 percent wanting to live near there.

In some respects, the decline in the numbers of people moving from one part of the Russian Federation since the end of Soviet times reflects a “positive” development. People are now able to decide to remain where they are rather than be forced to go where government planners tell them.

“But the negative factors are much more numerous,” Davydov argues, and include among other things, “the inertia of citizens, the unresolved problems of housing, and [the continuing operation of what are in most cases a plethora of illegal] administrative barriers.” 

“The social-cultural inertia” with regard to residence is “colossal,” he says, with only 10 percent of the population saying it is prepared to move to another part of Russia – a figure that is only three percentage points more than the number who indicate that they are ready to move to another country!

But more serious than the continuing administrative obstacles and the attitudes of Russians is “the absence of housing stock.” Privatization has had many consequences, one of which is that it has reduced the share of rental units dramatically. In Russia today, only five percent of all housing is rental, compared with 50 percent or more in most Western countries.

Given low pay, it is extremely difficult if not impossible for people to move, even though such moves would help combat unemployment, promote economic development and even lead to a decline in the need for immigrant workers from abroad and to an increase in the chances for Russia to modernize.

Some officials recognize this reality, Davydov continues. Among them is Aleksandr Khloponin, presidential plenipotentiary for the North Caucasus Federal District who has pledged to find work in other parts of the Russian Federation for the unemployed of his region, an idea that has generated opposition because many of those who would move are not ethnic Russians.

The state needs to promote inter-Russian mobility but doing so now is hard because during economic crises, people are less willing to take the risks that a move involved. The VTsIOM polling agency has found that the share of Russians willing to move has declined from 16 percent to only 10 percent since the recession began. 

But Davydov insists, the recession will be longer and deeper unless internal migration increases, and he insists that Russians must stop thinking about “migration policy” as a means to prevent people from moving but rather as a way to give them the chance to move in economically beneficial ways.

Over time, he suggests, a successful migration policy will have other benefits, increasing reversing the flow of people from the regions to Moscow and from east to west because “the quality of life in oblast and kray centers will gradually grow and thus the prospect of leaving the ‘capital’ will not look so bad.”

But there is an even more compelling reason to end restrictions on movement and promote rental housing in key areas: “The failure of migration policy will put an end to plans for leveling out the social-economic development of the regions,” Davydov says, and it will thus make it far more difficult for Russia to emerge as a modernized economy.