Photo: Mariana Katsarova
The human rights situation in Russia has worsened significantly in the past year amid a tightening of the state-sponsored system of intimidation and punishment, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Russia, Mariana Katsarova, said on Monday, September 23, Agence France-Presse reports.
“No one (in Russia) is safe,” she stressed, speaking to journalists in Geneva.
Already a year earlier, experts had noted that, against the backdrop of the war that Moscow had unleashed against Ukraine, repression in the Russian Federation had reached an unprecedented level.
Since then, the suppression of dissent in the country has intensified, Kazarova noted, presenting her latest report.
“A state-sponsored system of intimidation and punishment is currently in effect in the country, including the use of torture in conditions of absolute impunity,” the UN special rapporteur explained.
“Human rights defenders, journalists and politicians are increasingly being persecuted and imprisoned, anti-war dissent of any kind is being criminalized, and police violence is being condoned,” Katsarova continued.
200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000The UN Special Rapporteur pointed to the increasing use of arbitrary arrests by the Russian authorities, as well as an increase in solitary confinement and deaths in custody.
Among the political prisoners, whose number, according to Katsarova, exceeds 1,300 people, many have been tortured, she emphasizes.
The Special Rapporteur recalled that the death in custody of Alexei Navalny in February last year is “just one example of the cruel treatment of the political opposition.”
Katsarova warned of the “new mass surveillance of everyone on the Internet” launched by the Russian authorities.
“The Russian authorities are persecuting dissidents and anti-war critics and human rights activists not only physically, but also via the Internet,” – she said.
She also stressed that the human rights situation in Russia cannot be “considered without seeing a clear connection between aggression abroad and repressions within the country.”
“Everything that is happening inside Russia at the moment is colored by the ongoing… aggressive war against Ukraine,” said the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Russian Federation.
Prepared by: Sergey Daga