Published time: March 18, 2014 01:54
"We are bewildered (click here) and cannot conceive the biased, prejudiced and nonobjective assessment by Simonovic of the human rights situation in this country [Ukraine]," reads statement issued by the ministry on Monday.
Russian diplomats were indignant with the fact that the UN aide “only softly admonished a little group of politicians [in Kiev] for kindling hatred”, while at the same time expressed much graver concern with human rights situation in Crimea.
“The high-ranking UN official preferred not to notice killings, mass reprisals, torture, kidnappings, attacks on journalists and human rights advocates, arrests for political motives, blatant outbreaks of obviously racist - including anti-Russian and anti-Semitic - nature, which happen either on orders or with silent consent of the people who seized power in Kiev,” the Foreign Ministry said....
Now, Russia can feel equally treated of the Bush/Cheney administration when it was revealed they were committing torture. Welcome to the Torture Club, Russia and the ridicule that goes with it.
12 March 2014
Russia: Psychiatric incarceration verdict coming up for review (click here)
An appeal against a ruling to commit Mikhail Kosenko - potentially indefinitely - to forcible psychiatric treatment will be heard by a Moscow court tomorrow, following his arrest for participation in a protest action.
Amnesty International is monitoring his trial. The organization’s spokespeople are available for interviews.
“The decision the court takes tomorrow could endorse a Soviet-era practice of silencing dissent with the help of psychiatric medicine, incarcerating an innocent man, potentially indefinitely,” said Sergei Nikitin, Director of Amnesty International’s Moscow Office....
Ya think?
Following decisions by the Russian Federation Supreme Court, four asylum-seekers are still at risk of extradition from Russia to Kyrgyzstan, where they are at a real risk of torture and other ill-treatment.
On 25 February the Russian Federation Supreme Court (click here) ruled to overturn the November 2013 decision of St Petersburg City Court to cancel Murodil Tadzhibayev’s extradition to Kyrgyzstan. Additionally, in an unprecedented move, the Supreme Court ordered his immediate extradition.
Murodil Tadzhibayev had been released from detention in November 2013 following the lower court’s decision to cancel his extradition to Kyrgyzstan.
However, the Prosecutor General’s Office had appealed the decision at the Russian Federation Supreme Court. On 27 February his lawyers applied to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). On 28 February it issued an order for interim measures under Rule 39 requiring the Russian authorities not to extradite or otherwise involuntarily remove Murodil Tadzhibayev to Kyrgyzstan pending the Court’s full determination of his complaint. On 25 February the Supreme Court upheld the decision of the lower court in the case of Botir Turgunov to extradite him. On 20 February his lawyers applied to the ECtHR and it issued an order for interim measures under Rule 39. Botir Turgunov has been detained in a pre-trial detention centre in St Petersburg....
By Agence France-Presse
Monday, February 3, 2014 14:46 EDT
A Russian court (click here) on Monday detained for 15 days a leading environmental critic of the Sochi Olympic Games, ostensibly for “swearing” in a public place, his ecological group said.
Yevgeny Vitishko, a geologist and activist with the group Environmental Watch on the Northern Caucasus (EWNC), has been one of the most vehement critics of the damage to the environment caused by the Sochi Olympics....
Yevgeniy Vitishko (click here) will be imprisoned for three years if his appeal hearing fails. He did not receive a fair trial and his defence team believe the severity of the charges against him and the resulting sentence were politically motivated.
Yevgeniy Vitishko was originally sentenced to three years imprisonment in June 2012, charged with damaging a fence in November 2011, but this sentence was reduced to a two year suspended sentence. The fence had been
erected in an area of protected forest in Krasnodar Region of Russia. Yevgeniy Vitishko and other local environmental activists asserted that the fencing and construction on the fenced territory were illegal, and their intentions were to document these violations. They bent down two sections of the fence to witness destruction of rare protected trees and the unlawful construction of a building behind it, and sprayed graffiti on it....
Published on
Charles Digges
...Uselessness of the case (click here)
The case is this: In 2012, as part of a campaign to illuminate illegal construction of enormous, gaudy summer homes in the Sochi area for Russia’s political elite, Vitishko and his friend and EWNC colleague Suren Gazaryan, held a 12-person demonstration near a construction fence in the protected territory of the Western Caucasus National Park....
14 March 2014
Disappeared activists in Crimea (click here)
Three activists disappeared on the night of 13 March in the Crimean capital, Simferopol. On 14 March, Amnesty International spoke with the father of AutoMaydan activist, Oleksiy Gritsenko, who disappeared together with fellow activists, Natalya Lukyanchenko and Sergiy Suprun. The three activists had been in the region since last week.
Oleksiy Gritsenko’s father confirmed to Amnesty International that there has been no contact with any of them since 11pm on 13 March, following a call from Natalya Lukyanchenko to fellow activists to say that that their car was being chased by vehicles and shots had been fired at them.
Two of the activists’ mobile phones have been traced to the vicinity of Simferopol’s military commissariat, which is being guarded by military officers in unmarked uniforms. The officers deny that they are holding them. The activists’ car is also missing.
Amnesty International is calling on the Crimean authorities to immediately locate Oleksiy Gritsenko, Natalya Lukyanchenko and Sergiy Suprun and secure their immediate and unconditional release....
It is really unbecoming a country when they are two faced and pretend their
faux reality is deserving of legitimacy. Human beings have a right to their lives free of fear of torture, capture or relocation because they disagree with
their government. Victimizing innocent people incapable of violence themselves isn't going to legitimize Russia's wrongful invasion into the Ukraine.
Women? Defenseless women?
"We are bewildered (click here) and cannot conceive the biased, prejudiced and nonobjective assessment by Simonovic of the human rights situation in this country [Ukraine]," reads statement issued by the ministry on Monday.
Russian diplomats were indignant with the fact that the UN aide “only softly admonished a little group of politicians [in Kiev] for kindling hatred”, while at the same time expressed much graver concern with human rights situation in Crimea.
“The high-ranking UN official preferred not to notice killings, mass reprisals, torture, kidnappings, attacks on journalists and human rights advocates, arrests for political motives, blatant outbreaks of obviously racist - including anti-Russian and anti-Semitic - nature, which happen either on orders or with silent consent of the people who seized power in Kiev,” the Foreign Ministry said....
Now, Russia can feel equally treated of the Bush/Cheney administration when it was revealed they were committing torture. Welcome to the Torture Club, Russia and the ridicule that goes with it.
12 March 2014
Russia: Psychiatric incarceration verdict coming up for review (click here)
An appeal against a ruling to commit Mikhail Kosenko - potentially indefinitely - to forcible psychiatric treatment will be heard by a Moscow court tomorrow, following his arrest for participation in a protest action.
Amnesty International is monitoring his trial. The organization’s spokespeople are available for interviews.
“The decision the court takes tomorrow could endorse a Soviet-era practice of silencing dissent with the help of psychiatric medicine, incarcerating an innocent man, potentially indefinitely,” said Sergei Nikitin, Director of Amnesty International’s Moscow Office....
Ya think?
Following decisions by the Russian Federation Supreme Court, four asylum-seekers are still at risk of extradition from Russia to Kyrgyzstan, where they are at a real risk of torture and other ill-treatment.
On 25 February the Russian Federation Supreme Court (click here) ruled to overturn the November 2013 decision of St Petersburg City Court to cancel Murodil Tadzhibayev’s extradition to Kyrgyzstan. Additionally, in an unprecedented move, the Supreme Court ordered his immediate extradition.
Murodil Tadzhibayev had been released from detention in November 2013 following the lower court’s decision to cancel his extradition to Kyrgyzstan.
However, the Prosecutor General’s Office had appealed the decision at the Russian Federation Supreme Court. On 27 February his lawyers applied to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). On 28 February it issued an order for interim measures under Rule 39 requiring the Russian authorities not to extradite or otherwise involuntarily remove Murodil Tadzhibayev to Kyrgyzstan pending the Court’s full determination of his complaint. On 25 February the Supreme Court upheld the decision of the lower court in the case of Botir Turgunov to extradite him. On 20 February his lawyers applied to the ECtHR and it issued an order for interim measures under Rule 39. Botir Turgunov has been detained in a pre-trial detention centre in St Petersburg....
Monday, February 3, 2014 14:46 EDT
A Russian court (click here) on Monday detained for 15 days a leading environmental critic of the Sochi Olympic Games, ostensibly for “swearing” in a public place, his ecological group said.
Yevgeny Vitishko, a geologist and activist with the group Environmental Watch on the Northern Caucasus (EWNC), has been one of the most vehement critics of the damage to the environment caused by the Sochi Olympics....
Yevgeniy Vitishko (click here) will be imprisoned for three years if his appeal hearing fails. He did not receive a fair trial and his defence team believe the severity of the charges against him and the resulting sentence were politically motivated.
Yevgeniy Vitishko was originally sentenced to three years imprisonment in June 2012, charged with damaging a fence in November 2011, but this sentence was reduced to a two year suspended sentence. The fence had been
erected in an area of protected forest in Krasnodar Region of Russia. Yevgeniy Vitishko and other local environmental activists asserted that the fencing and construction on the fenced territory were illegal, and their intentions were to document these violations. They bent down two sections of the fence to witness destruction of rare protected trees and the unlawful construction of a building behind it, and sprayed graffiti on it....Published on
Charles Digges
...Uselessness of the case (click here)
The case is this: In 2012, as part of a campaign to illuminate illegal construction of enormous, gaudy summer homes in the Sochi area for Russia’s political elite, Vitishko and his friend and EWNC colleague Suren Gazaryan, held a 12-person demonstration near a construction fence in the protected territory of the Western Caucasus National Park....
14 March 2014
Disappeared activists in Crimea (click here)
Three activists disappeared on the night of 13 March in the Crimean capital, Simferopol. On 14 March, Amnesty International spoke with the father of AutoMaydan activist, Oleksiy Gritsenko, who disappeared together with fellow activists, Natalya Lukyanchenko and Sergiy Suprun. The three activists had been in the region since last week.
Oleksiy Gritsenko’s father confirmed to Amnesty International that there has been no contact with any of them since 11pm on 13 March, following a call from Natalya Lukyanchenko to fellow activists to say that that their car was being chased by vehicles and shots had been fired at them.
Two of the activists’ mobile phones have been traced to the vicinity of Simferopol’s military commissariat, which is being guarded by military officers in unmarked uniforms. The officers deny that they are holding them. The activists’ car is also missing.
Amnesty International is calling on the Crimean authorities to immediately locate Oleksiy Gritsenko, Natalya Lukyanchenko and Sergiy Suprun and secure their immediate and unconditional release....
It is really unbecoming a country when they are two faced and pretend their
faux reality is deserving of legitimacy. Human beings have a right to their lives free of fear of torture, capture or relocation because they disagree with
their government. Victimizing innocent people incapable of violence themselves isn't going to legitimize Russia's wrongful invasion into the Ukraine.
Women? Defenseless women?
On 9 March photographe
Oles Kromplyas, journalist (click here) Olena Maksymenko and their driver Eugene Oles = Kromplyas, journalist Olena Maksymenko and their driver Eugene Rakhno disappeared after being stopped at a checkpoint, reportedly
manned by riot police officers and armed, plain clothed masked men without
any identifiable insignia. The armed men, who claimed to be from Crimea’s
“self-defence”forces, had guns and knives. Their colleague, journalist Oleksiy
Byk, was in a separate vehicle with his brother, aresident of Crimea.
Oleksiy Byk told Amnesty International that he also saw two women kneeling in front of their car with their hands tied. Surrounded by piles of clothing, papers and notebooks, the women were crying. Oleksiy Byk said he could
hear the armed men threatening them. The women were later identified by
their car license plate as Oleksandra Ryazantseya and Kateryna Butko,
both AutoMaydan activists from the Kyiv-based group that organized
automobile protest actions during the EuroMaydan demonstrations. Kateryna Butko is the group’s press secretary and Oleksiy Byk said he saw that she
was wearing a press badge identifying her as a journalist. At 4pm Oleksiy
Byk and his brother were allowed to leave, due to the brother’s residency in Crimea. When they returned 30 minutes later their colleagues’ car and the armed men were gone. However Oleksiy Byk said he could still see the
two women kneeling, still with their hands tied, in front of a military tent in the distance. Oleksiy Byk and his brother left and immediately contacted Ukrainian media....
This is Russia's precious Crimea under the influence of a militia. Nice, real nice.
What was his crime, being alive and making a living?
Missing driver who was taking three journalists to Crimea
By: Lesya Kokhanovska
Published 11.03.2014
...There were two girls (click here) – Automaidan activists – in one car.
Oleksiy saw their stuff thrown out of the car; they were bringing letters to Ukrainian soldiers, some food, Ukrainian symbolics, flags, and other things to Crimea. Also, according to his testimony, from afar it looked as if the girls were beaten up and their arms were tied, they were crying. Later their car was pulled away from the road, and the girls were taken in the unknown direction. After this accident around 16:00 the connection with them was lost.
Ukrainska Pravda found out that Kateryna Butko and Oleksandra Ryazantseva are in Berkut camp. According to the information of Automaidan representatives, “Crimea self-defense” is ready to let them go, but Berkut doesn’t agree to it.
Later Oleksandra Ryazantseva’s father was informed that she and Butko are taken to Sevastopol to the headquarters of Black Sea Fleet of Russian Federation.
Also a couple of people disappeared from the other car: freelance photojournalist Oles’ (his last name is unknown) and one more journalist. The driver of the car Jeep Wrangler with license plate AE 9115 ЄВ, with the group of journalists, disappeared too....
This is Russia's precious Crimea under the influence of a militia. Nice, real nice.
What was his crime, being alive and making a living?
By: Lesya Kokhanovska
Published 11.03.2014
...There were two girls (click here) – Automaidan activists – in one car.
Oleksiy saw their stuff thrown out of the car; they were bringing letters to Ukrainian soldiers, some food, Ukrainian symbolics, flags, and other things to Crimea. Also, according to his testimony, from afar it looked as if the girls were beaten up and their arms were tied, they were crying. Later their car was pulled away from the road, and the girls were taken in the unknown direction. After this accident around 16:00 the connection with them was lost.
Ukrainska Pravda found out that Kateryna Butko and Oleksandra Ryazantseva are in Berkut camp. According to the information of Automaidan representatives, “Crimea self-defense” is ready to let them go, but Berkut doesn’t agree to it.
Later Oleksandra Ryazantseva’s father was informed that she and Butko are taken to Sevastopol to the headquarters of Black Sea Fleet of Russian Federation.
Also a couple of people disappeared from the other car: freelance photojournalist Oles’ (his last name is unknown) and one more journalist. The driver of the car Jeep Wrangler with license plate AE 9115 ЄВ, with the group of journalists, disappeared too....
