Vladimir Kara-Murza Addresses UN Human Rights Council Meeting on Issue of Russia’s Political Prisoners, Invokes Case of Alexey Pichugin
July 11, 2019
On July 1, 2019, Vladimir Kara-Murza, Chairman of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation, addressed the 41st session of the UN Human Rights Council (Geneva, Switzerland) on the issue of political prisoners in the Russian Federation, including the country’s longest-serving political prisoner, Alexey Pichugin.
In his remarks, Kara-Murza told the UN body that the number of political prisoners today (297 according to the Moscow-based Memorial Human Rights Center) had grown six-fold over the past few years and is now twice what it was in the Soviet Union.
Kara-Murza called on the Council to “speak out on their behalf and to seek justice for those who are deprived of it at home.”
See the full transcript of his remarks here:
Thank you, Mr. President.
I am Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian democracy activist, and I am honoured to address the United Nations Human Rights Council on behalf of Ingénieurs du Monde.
In his Nobel Lecture in December 1975 Andrei Sakharov named 126 prisoners of conscience in the Soviet Union. In July 2019, according to the Memorial Human Rights Centre, there are 297 political and religious prisoners in Russia. Both are conservative estimates. But they give an idea.
Oleg Sentsov, a Crimean film director who protested against the annexation. Anastasia Shevchenko, an opposition activist and a single mother, the first person arrested under the new law on “undesirable organizations.” Alexei Pichugin, the remaining hostage of the “Yukos Affair,” who, after 16 years, is Russia’s longest-serving political prisoner. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has demanded his immediate release.
Just three names out of 297. And the figure keeps growing: in the last four years, the number of political and religious prisoners in Russia has increased six-fold.
Their continued incarceration violates not only Russia’s Constitution, but our country’s obligations under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, as well as the OSCE Vienna Concluding Document and the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. It is time for the UN Human Rights Council to speak out on their behalf – and to seek justice for those who are deprived of it at home.
Znak Internet Newspaper: “Free Russia”: The number of political prisoners in the RF grew sixfold in four years – July 9, 2019
Activist: Number Of Political Prisoners In Russia Twice What It Was In U.S.S.R.
