The accusations against Khodorkovsky have collapsed now that two senior establishment figures have testified. He may still be found guilty. But the absurdity of this trial is eroding public confidence in Putin’s regime.
Ex-Yukos bosses Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev stand accused of a crime that even prosecutors are finding difficult to define, writes Mariana Toroschesnikova. Now foreigners are beggining to understand the real danger in Russia lies not in wild bears roaming its streets but in wild prosecutors ruling the courts.
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. Gudziak refused to co-operate and produced a following memorandum that has sent shockwaves through Ukraine.
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 Salmagundi, not previously available on the web, was recorded on 23 November 2005, in Chicago.
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 Poland and Katyn in particular. The results were sometimes startling, as Alexei Levinson recounts.
Olga Kudeshkina made headlines in 2004 as the first Russian judge to flag up political interference in the judicial system. Dismissed for her resistance, she took her case to the European Court of Human Rights and won. Kudeshkina outlines the continued political pressure felt by the judiciary and the barriers in the way of President Medvedev’s intentions to reform.
In 2004, some local journalists in Oryol founded an independent newspaper ‘for those who want the truth’. Although it sold well, members of staff were subject to threats, bribes, attacks and arson. Still, it lasted four years.
The focus of dialogue with Beijing about human rights should shift from enforcing universal laws towards building a shared moral identity, says William A Callahan.