U.S. State Department Charges Russia With Human Rights Abuses, References Alexey Pichugin
March 13, 2019
In its just-released Country Reports On Human Rights Practices for 2018, the U.S. State Department has charged the Russian Federation with a series of human rights abuses both home and abroad.
In its section on “Political Prisoners and Detainees,” the country profile laments the placement of political prisoners in “particularly harsh conditions of confinement or punitive stays in psychiatric units.” Citing The Memorial Human Rights Center’s November 2018 list of political prisoners, the report specifically references the case of Alexey Pichugin as a case in point for ever-increasing prison terms for political prisoners:
“Memorial noted the average sentences for the cases on their list continued to grow, from 5.3 years for political prisoners and 6.6 years for religious prisoners in 2016 to 6.8 and 9.1 years, respectively, this year. In some cases sentences were significantly longer, such as in the case of Aleksey Pichugin, who has been imprisoned since 2003 with a life sentence.”
The inclusion of Alexey Pichugin’s fate in the report – coupled with the recently-announced launch of the “Coalition to Free the Kremlin’s Political Prisoners” – may help lend a voice to Russia’s political prisoners who are suffering under the Kremlin’s “brutal and systematic campaign to crush civil society in Russia and stifle dissent both within its borders and beyond.”
Among the human rights abuses listed in the Russian Federation’s country profile are extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances by government authorities, torture at the hands of law enforcement personnel, harsh and life-threatening conditions in prisons, arbitrary or unjust arrest and detention, political imprisonment, increasingly severe suppression of freedom of association, severe restrictions on religious freedom, and undue restrictions on freedom of movement of those charged with political offenses, to name but a few.
To read the full report, click here.
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