Condoleezza Rice met with Russian human rights activists in Moscow

13 October, as a part of the official visit to the Russian Federation, the United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (right) met with the Russian human rights activists and Media. On the agenda there were a discussion of contemporary situation with human rights in the Russian Federation and freedom of speech, vital issues in judiciary, a new law on NGOs and situation in the Northern Caucasus (23-OCT-07).

Written by HRH Moscow/Inna Komar
Sources: http://www.svobodanews.ru, http://www.hro.org, http://www.kvkz.ru

Background
During the United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice two-day official visit to Moscow, she was able to meet Mass-Media representatives and some leaders of the most powerful non-governmental organizations in the Russian Federation. In total 8 human rights activists took part in the meeting, among them there were Liudmila Alekseeva – the Head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, Tatyana Lokshina – the leader of Human Rights Centre “DEMOS”, Aleksandr Brod – the director of the Moscow Human Rights Bureau and Vladimir Lukin – Russia´s human rights Ombudsman.

The Kremlin trempled down everybody
Liudmila Alekseeva (right) in her opening address gave a review report on human rights situation in the Russian Federation, where she said that if in 1990s we had been on the way to democracy, since 2000 we had started moving to authoritarian regime establishment. Therefore, citizens are deprived of their political, economic and civil rights. According to her: “The Kremlin administration trampled down everybody”. She asked Condoleezza Rice and the USA to rise up the issues of human rights in the Russian Federation in the international scene, for the internal problems with human rights violations in one country aren`t only their own business, it concerns the whole international community.
The Russia`s Ombudsman, Vladimir Lukin pointed out that we should carry on a diologue on human rights issues and not discuss them in style of “lectures” or “Doomsday”.

Integration and cooperation
In his turn, the director of the Moscow Human Rights Bureau Aleksandr Brod (right) stated that on the meeting the human rights defenders subjected the situation with human rights violations in the Russian Federation to harsh criticism. He appealed to cooperation and integration. “We shouldn`t tell each other what to do and not to complain about how bad everything is. All we have to do is to co-exist and help each other”. The human rights activist also offered to create the Russain-American  social forum. According to his words it is necessary, because for NGOs it`s easier to carry on a dialogue between each other than for politicians.

Caucasus was on the agenda
As Tatyana Lokshina (right) said after the meeting, they discussed a situation around civil society in the Russian Federation, a Law on Non-governmental organizations, Russian anti-extremist legislation, which can be used as a weapon against political opposition. She also added that there was razed a vital issue concerning preservation of “explosive” situation in the Northern Caucasus, especially in Ingushetia and Dagestan. Besides, they were talking about weak democratic institutions problems, freedom of speech and situation with judiciary.

Human rights is a universal value!
Commenting upon the situation with human rights in the Russian Federation, Condoleezza Rice voiced that concentration of power in the Kremlin was connected in particular with weak civil society. “Notions about democratic institutions may various in different countries, but all people have right for freedoms, for human rights is a universal value” – stressed the United States Secretary of State.