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The Moscow City Psychology-Teacher´s Training University conducted a seminar this week on suicide prevention in the Russian Army. The issue is vital to Russian society: according to the General Office of the Public Prosecutor, more than 6,500 army personnel suffered from ‘dedovshina’ (harassment, humiliation, and other violations of soldiers´ dignity) last year. Of these, approximately 70 went on to commit suicide. (07-DEC-07)
 

Over the last couple of weeks, a digest of the independent Chechen journal ‘DOSH’ – ‘A word’ – has been launched in Brussels, Paris and Oslo. The journal has been published in the Russian Federation since March 2003. The Chechen journalists told European public figures, politicians, mass media representatives and human rights activists how hard it has become to be an independent journalist in the Russian Federation and what difficulties they face when democratic principles are not observed. (25-NOV-07)
  

2 December 2007 – for this date the elections in the State Duma of the Russian Federation are set. Many independent foreign observers from various international organizations were going to come on this period. Among them there was the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). But the Russian authorities did their best to frustrate participation of the observers from the OSCE. As a result, the OSCE has simply refused to participate in supervision over such “elections”. (23–NOV–07)
 

Early in October so called “Civil pool”, a coalition of public organizations, established to control the election process to the State Duma on 2 December, announced about its self-dissolution. It happened after Vladimir Putin made a statement to head the party “United Russia”. The “Pool” was created in spring 2007 by initiative of Ella Pamfilova, the Chairman of the Civil Society Institutions and Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation. (29-OCT-2007)
 

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).

7 October, 2007 people in the Russian Federation and other countries reversed Anna Politkovskaya`s memory. Anna was a very famous Russian journalist and human rights defender, who opposed war in the Chechen Republic and criticized Putin`s regime. She was shot dead a year ago. In Anna`s commemoration there were held a number of events all over the world. (15-OCT-07)

13 September 2007 in Vienna the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society was excluded from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) – Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights – meeting. The USA delegation left the session in protest. The human rights society is outraged by this fact, because, first of all, it violates the right to express their opinion avowedly. (24-SEP-07)
 

In early September an action “White Ribbon”, directed on a straight fight with domestic violence, got started in Vologda region. The organizers strongly believe that if we can’t resist the home violence, we can at least reduce it. The most important thing is not to keep silent! For the victims were opened help lines, where both women and men can get a qualified help. (15-SEPT-07)
 

29-30 August the Foundation to Support Tolerance and the Novaya Gazeta office in Nizhny Novgorod were taken under illegal check by local lawmen. As a result, they seized computers from the mentioned organizations on the pretext of using unlicensed software. The human rights defenders strongly protest against these actions and think that authorities are trying to use any method to paralyze the work of non-governmental organizations and media.