On April 9 2010, after explosions in the Moscow metro killed 39 people, rumours were circulated of 1,000 ‘black widows’ who had been recruited by the militants. When the press published the names of 22, Tanya Lokshina of Human Rights Watch found that she knew some of these dangerous women : a seam
The end of Sri Lanka’s post-war electoral cycle makes it even more important for the world to stand for justice over the country’s human-rights abuses, says Meenakshi Ganguly.This article was first published on 28 April 2010
On May 18, the Ukrainian Security Services paid a strange visit to Borys Gudziak, rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv. Their goal, it seems, was to ensure his students would not take to the streets to protest against the new President when he arrived in town the following day. Gudz
On 19 May, at a meeting with the main human rights organizations working in the republics of the North Caucasus, President Medvedev enjoined the local authorities to work with the NGOs to enforce the rule of law and tackle abuses of power by the security forces. Tanya Lokshina, of Human Rights Wat
The approach to juvenile lawbreakers in Russia and in England & Wales is more punitive than in other European countries. Why do we put young offenders behind bars?In this article Mary McAuley highlights some of the questions she has addressed in her new book ‘Children in Custody’.
Six months on from the controversial prison death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, Oliver Carroll spoke to key witness and former employer Jamison Firestone. Part two of two.
Six months on from the controversial prison death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, Oliver Carroll spoke to key witness and former employer Jamison Firestone. Part one of two.
The death in custody of Sergei Magnitsky in November shocked the world and mobilised President Medvedev into a promise of reform. Yet, as a second death tragically illustrates, the system has remained essentially unchanged: brutal, dependent and secretive.
Fred Halliday, who died on 26 April, talks to Danny Postel about realpolitik, religion, universal rights and the pitfalls of the Left. He discusses the need to combine solidarity with critical distance, to know what is really happening in Third World countries. This interview, published in Salmagu
The NKVD’s mass execution in 1940 of Polish officers in Katyn Forest has complicated the often tense relations between Russia and Poland. But the plane crash on 10 April 2010 brought the countries closer together. Russia’s Levada Center has recently carried out a survey into Russian attitudes to P
The idea was born on a train ride returning from the ‘Religion Revisited’- conference of UNRISD and the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Berlin last June
An intense controversy over Amnesty International's association with people who reject its universalist principles has been sparked by its treatment of a senior figure who raised the issue. Here, a global petition signed by prominent writers and activists poses questions to the human-rights organi
