The future of human rights in Russia

In an attempt to ingratiate itself back into the international community, we’ve seen some interesting manoeuvres recently from Russia,. Moscow was diplomatically isolated following its invasion of Ukraine last year, kicked off the United Nations Human Rights Council, and pointedly cold shouldered in other UN meetings.

But this month, after various “friendship” visits by Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov, to Africa and to South America, Moscow hoped it had enough votes at the UN general assembly to regain its seat on the human rights council.

On this week’s Inside Geneva, we hear from Russian human rights defenders why they think that is such a terrible idea. Leave aside for a moment the well documented violations committed inside Ukraine – the indiscriminate bombing, the torture of detainees, the transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia – inside Russia itself the government has “brought back the entire arsenal of Soviet style repressive techniques, used to eradicate all dissent within the country, and scare people into silence.”

These were the words of Evgenia Kara-Murza, Russian human rights defender and wife of Vladimir Kara-Murza, recently sentenced to 25 years in prison in Siberia, simply for protesting Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Russian opposition crushed

Kara-Murza, together with the UN special rapporteur on Russia, Mariana Katzarova, and Russian human rights lawyer Kirill Koroteev, took part in a discussion in Geneva to highlight the measures Moscow is now using against its own citizens, in a bid to crush any opposition.

Koroteev pointed out that, increasingly, even the tiniest protests are being tried in military courts, where, even if the judge thinks a fine or suspended sentence is more appropriate, a minimum prison sentence of five years is obligatory. Kara-Murza provided long lists of names of people, from journalists, to teachers, students, or bus drivers – “I could go on all day” she said – of people punished for opposing Russia’s war.

And Katzarova, the newly appointed special rapporteur for Russia, pointed out that Moscow’s oppression of opposition was not new. The journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who had written about Russia’s brutal war in Chechnya, was murdered in 2007. “Where were we then?” asked Katzarova. And now, she continued, her work as special rapporteur had revealed that “every conceivable law has been revised to make it a tool of oppression.”

Even as Katzarova was speaking, Russia’s diplomats were busy at the human rights council trying to persuade member states to vote against the renewal of her mandate for another year.

Who votes for Russia?

In the end, human rights council members were not swayed by Russia, and Katzarova will continue as special rapporteur. And, over at the general assembly in New York, Russia also failed in its bid to regain it seat on the council, losing out to Albania and Bulgaria.

But, in the general assembly’s secret ballot, Moscow did manage to get 83 votes – not enough to win, but still, a sizeable number. How did that happen? Louis Charbonneau, UN Director of Human Rights Watch, tells Inside Geneva he thinks some countries in the Global South are “growing tired” of the war in Ukraine, and want to move on. Russia, he points out, sells useful things; weapons, fuel, agricultural goods. And, he sighs, “there’s a large number of countries in the world who don’t care about or are hostile to human rights – they don’t care about the war crimes.”

But, in the end, Moscow did lose, and that shows, Charbonneau insists, that the majority of UN member states believe Russia has no business on the UN’s top human rights body.

What kind of Russia do we want?

And, while continuing to isolate Russia on the international stage, and to scrutinise its actions both in Ukraine and inside its own borders, Katzarova argues that it is also very important to keep an eye on the future.

“I do care what kind of Russia will be there next to our borders of Europe and of Eastern Europe”, she said. “Whether it will be a black hole where people will be disappearing, being tortured being arbitrarily detained.”

Trying to ensure that doesn’t happen means supporting, in any way we can, the brave human rights defenders and lawyers who continue to work inside Russia, and those who have fled their country but are still trying to change it.

“I have a message for the international community: please see us as your partners”, Kara-Murza appealed. “We want a different Russia, a Russia based on the rule of law and respect for human rights. That is our goal.”

To achieve that goal, Katzarova says we must avoid the kind of lazy judgement, seen quite often in the western media, that all of Russia, and all Russians, are the enemy. “We cannot treat all Russians with this blanket approach: the Russians are responsible, there is no such thing! I’m a human rights expert, I don’t believe in group guilt of any sort.”

It’s easy to lose hope though, when we see how long the war in Ukraine has lasted, that there is no sign of it ending, while at the same time in Russia, human rights defenders are, says Charbonneau, being “decimated, devastated, persecuted, silenced…I have no illusions about how bad it is.”

But Charbonneau also offers a note of hope – a hope we can nurture as long as we continue supporting human rights defenders, wherever they are at risk. Oppression on such a scale, he says, is not sustainable.

“It takes a lot of effort to suppress the truth, to destroy and muzzle every possible critic. It takes a lot of energy. Time is against the oppressors like Vladimir Putin, like Xi Jinping, and others. They will not last, but that doesn’t mean that we’re not in store for a rough ride.”