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Several key areas where Russian government has yet to make a progress if the country wants to be more democratic remain to be a core issue with regard to human rights within Russian Federation. It was outlined during the visit of human rights defenders from the Norwegian Helsinki Committee to St. Petersburg and Moscow on 8-12 September.

On 14 June, a Moscow court ruled to acquit Oleg Orlov, Chair of the Memorial Human Rights Society, one of Europe’s most respected human rights groups. Mr. Orlov was charged with defamation against Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, in connection with statements Orlov made at the time Memorial employee and award winning human rights defender Natalya Estemirova was killed in 2009.

A prominent Russian human rights activist of Uzbek origin Bakhrom Khamroev was attacked and beaten in his Moscow apartment block on 6 May 2011. He was hospitalized, police have launched an investigation into the incident. The Norwegian Helsinki Committee is deeply distraught to learn of yet another violent attack on employee of Human Rights Center Memorial.

On 30-31 May the Russian Research Center for Human Rights in cooperation with Conference of International NGOs of the Council of Europe held a conference ‘Respect for Human Rights in Closed Establishments of Russia’ in Yekaterinburg.
Representatives of Council of Europe, member organizations of the Center, as well as other regional NGOs, members of Public Supervising Committees and media representatives discussed the results of the monitoring of human rights violations in closed establishments and the work of Public Supervising Committees.

RRCHR in cooperation with Council of Europe will hold conference ‘Respect for Human Rights in Closed Establishments of Russia’. The participants will focus on such issues as progress and difficulties in work of Public Supervising Committees, analysis of the situation in colonies for juveniles and psychiatric hospitals and best practices of civil society’s monitoring of closed establishments, national and international experience.

English PEN welcomes the conviction and sentencing of two people in connection to the 2009 double murder of freelance journalist Anastasiya Baburova and human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov, in a trial described by the Committee to Protect Journalists as ‘a landmark victory in the fight against impunity in press killings in Russia’.

The Moscow Helsinki Group, the oldest human rights organization in Russia, celebrates its 35 years’ anniversary today. Ludmila Alexeyeva, who has been a part of the organization since its first day and who is now at its head, says that the main organisation’s purpose is to force the authorities to observe the Constitution and human rights and to respect citizens’ dignity.

On 3 March a hearing in the trial of Oleg Orlov took place in Russia. The head of the Russian NGO Human Rights Centre Memorial is charged with slander for saying that Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov was responsible for the death of his colleague, human rights defender Natalia Estemirova, who was abducted and murdered in 2009.

Voluntary organisations, institutions and individuals worldwide are welcome to nominate candidates for the 2011 Rafto Prize for Human Rights. The Rafto Prize, awarded in memory of Norwegian professor Thorolf Rafto, is awarded to an individual or organisation that embodies and upholds the principles of the Human Rights Charter through activism or engagement.