Human rights in Russia have ‘significantly’ worsened since Ukraine war began, UN-backed expert says
GENEVA (AP) — The rights situation in Russia has “significantly deteriorated” since President Vladimir Putin launched his war against Ukraine in February last year, an expert commissioned by the U.N.’s top human rights body said in her first report on the country on Monday.
Mariana Katzarova, the special rapporteur on Russia’s rights situation mandated by the Human Rights Council, chronicled the domestic crackdown that has largely targeted critics of Putin’s war as well as other opposition voices in Russia.
Her report, made public on Monday, is separate from another probe by U.N.-backed investigators that has accused Russia of war crimes in Ukraine.
Never before has the council authorized a rights expert to examine rights issues in one of the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council: Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States.
The report cited figures last month from OVD-Info, which tracks human rights violations, indicating that more than 20,000 people were detained between February last year and June for participating in anti-war protests. More than 600 criminal lawsuits were initiated against “anti-war activity.”
The report said over half of all protesters who were arrested for what it called “peaceful anti-war activism” were women.
Katzarova said she had received “credible reports” of a litany of rights violations including torture, allegations of rape and sexual violence, and threats of sexual abuse by law enforcement officers against both men and women.
The Russian Justice Ministry’s registry of “foreign agents” contained 649 organizations and individuals by the end of July — an increase of more than 25% in six months, the report said. More than 100 organizations were declared as “undesirable” at the end of July, meaning they could be banned.
Last April, barely six weeks after Russia’s armed invasion of Ukraine, the U.N. General Assembly suspended Russia’s seat in the 47-member-country rights council in Geneva.
