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According to the annual report of the Moscow Bureau for Human Rights, in 2005 total xenophobic rate in country was staying stable high and about 60% of population upholds anti-Semitic and xenophobic slogans to some extent. There are more than 100 newspapers publishing anti-Semitic and xenophobic slogans and hundreds of web-sites advocating national hatred. Obvious appeals to violence are heard and some political circles aspire to make them legitimate. (18-FEB-06)
 

3 February the trial was held of Stanislav Dmitrievski, which human rights activists identify as the obvious politically motivated case. The Soviet Court of Nijny Novgorod sentenced Dmitrievsky to the two-year suspended sentence and four years of “testing period” (with prohibition of changing place of residence and obligation to register oneself periodically in a police office). Stanislav Dmitrievski doesn’t agree with the ruling of the court and he is going to appeal against it. (07-FEB-06)
 

On 29 January, 300 demonstrators gathered outside the Russian Defence Ministry in Moscow to show their anger after a group of drunken servicemen was torturing a 19-year-old soldier for several hours. The proceedings have been instituted against Major General Aleksey Sidorov, the head of the Chelyabinsk Tank Training College. (02-FEB-06).
 

Representatives of Russian human rights organizations are calling on all NGOs and concerned individuals to express their support. Please add your signatures – as individuals or organizations – and send this appeal on for others to sign. (01-FEB-06)
 

23 January the Federal Security Bureau (FSB) and the “Rossia” Television Channel accused British diplomats of espionage and maintaining contacts with Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), including the Eurasia Foundation and the Moscow Helsinki Group. (25-JAN-06)
 

16 January  the negotiations of the German Chancellor Angela Merkel with the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin took place in Moscow. Angela Merkel has strongly raised questions concerning problems of human rights in the Russian Federation. At the Embassy of Federal Republic of Germany Angela Merkel had a special meeting with representatives of the Russian human rights movement. (19-JAN-06)
 

On 21 December 2005 the Russian State Duma by an overwhelming majority has passed the second reading of the project of the federal law # 233364-4 “About the alteration of some legislative acts of the Russian Federation”. The deputies included more then sixteen amendments into the first variant of the project. As expected, the deputies allowed all of Vladimir Putin’s recommendations. (Read more) (24-DEC-2005)
 

On 23 November the Russian State Duma, in spite of the numerous international protests, passed, in the first reading, the project of the federal law # 233364-4 “About the alteration of some legislative acts of the Russian Federation” which is directed at establishing control over NGOs and ending of existence of independent civil society in the Russian Federation. Vladimir Putin had a meeting with the chairwoman of the Council of the Assistance of the Development of the Institutes of the Civil Society and Human Rights under the President of the Russian Federation, Ella Pamfilova, who supported the NGOs and advocated scrapping the Bill. (20-DEC-2005)
 

On December 12 2005 the Second All-Russian Civil Congress took place in Moscow. Advancing the slogan “Russia for democracy, Against Dictatorship” it has brought together leaders of liberal opposition parties and more than 700 representatives of civil and human rights organizations from all over the country. Several questions were discussed during the Congress: resistance to the destruction of civil society in the Russian Federation, elections in 2007-2008 and the creation of a united party of democrats, the threat of nationalism and fascism and the creation of a civil (independent) television network. (20-DEC-2005)