Rights in Russia

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This week Simon Cosgrove and Sergei Nikitin talk with Maria Kanevskaya (pictured), a civil society activist based in St. Petersburg who is one of Russia's leading lawyers working in the field of right of association. She currently heads the First NGO Laboratory. Maria talks about the development over the last 20 years of the inhospitable environment for NGOs in Russia that exists today. She descri...

This week Simon Cosgrove and Sergei Nikitin talk with Elena Zhemkova (pictured), executive director of International Memorial. International Memorial is one of the oldest and most respected civil society organisations in Russia that is respected worldwide for its commitment to uncovering the truth about Soviet and Russian history and the protection of human rights. International Memorial was found...

This week Simon Cosgrove and Sergei Nikitin talk with Karinna Moskalenko (pictured), one of Russia's leading human rights lawyers. Karinna Moskalenko is founder and head of programmes at the Centre for International Protection, a network of groups that is based in Moscow and Strasbourg, and also has offices in Bishkek, Erevan and Kiev. The Centre specialises in bringing cases to the European Court...

This week Simon Cosgrove and Sergei Nikitin talk with Sergei Davidis (pictured), member of the board of Memorial Human Rights Centre and director of the Centre's programme on political prisoners. Memorial Human Rights Centre is one of the most authoritative human rights organisations in Russia. The programme headed by Sergei Davidis, among a range of activities in support of political prisoners, m...

This week Simon Cosgrove and Sergei Nikitin talk with Sergei Poduzov (pictured left), co-chair of  Chelovek i Zakon  [Individual & the Law], a leading Russian human rights NGO founded in Yoshkar-Ola, capital of the republic of Mari El (located about 700 km east of Moscow). Since its foundation in 1999, Chelovek i Zakon has established itself as one of Russia's leading human righ...

This week Simon Cosgrove and Sergei Nikitin talk with Nadezhda Azhgikhina (pictured left), executive director of the Moscow PEN Centre . Nadezhda Azhgikina previously served two terms as vice-president of the European Federation of Journalists , and before that was a secretary of the Union of Journalists of Russia . Nadezhda Azhgikina’s career as a journalist began at Komsomolskaya pravda , where...

This week Simon Cosgrove and Sergei Nikitin talk with Lev Ponomarev (pictured left), long-time head of For Human Rights , one of Russia's leading NGOs .  In this podcast, Lev Ponomarev talks about the current state of his organisation, his recent arrest and injury as he took part in a peaceful picket outside the FSB headquarters on Lubyanka Square in Moscow, the proposed changes to the Consti...

This week Simon Cosgrove and Sergei Nikitin talk with Dmitry Makarov (pictured left), co-chair of the Moscow Helsinki Group and co-chair of the coordinating committee of the International Youth Human Rights Movement .  The  Moscow Helsinki Group  is one of Russia's oldest and leading  human rights organisations .  It was originally set up in 1976 to monitor Soviet complian...

This week Simon Cosgrove and Sergei Nikitin talk with Galina Arapova (pictured left), director of the Mass Media Defence Centre ,  based in the city of Voronezh. The Mass Media Defence Centre is one of the leading NGOs and think tanks working on media law and the rights of journalists, bloggers and media outlets in Russia. For more information about the Mass Media Defence Centre, visit its we...

This week Simon Cosgrove and Sergei Nikitin talk with Tatyana and Nikolai Shchur. Tatyana and Nikolai are human rights activists from the city of Snezhinsk in Chelyabinsk region. Tatyana and Nikolai began their careers as human rights defenders working on environmental issues but since the mid-1990s have focused largely on conditions of detention. For many years they have been leading members of t...

This week Simon Cosgrove and Sergei Nikitin are joined by Nadia Kutepova, a human rights activist from the closed city of Ozersk in Chelyabinsk region. Nadia was director of the  human rights organisation  Planet of Hopes in Ozersk, specialising in the protection of the rights of those who suffered from the radiation pollution from the Mayak atomic plant based in the city. Planet of Hope...

This week Simon Cosgrove and Sergei Nikitin are joined by Yury Dzhibladze, director of the Centre for Development of Democracy and Human Rights, based in Moscow. Yury has worked on human rights, democracy, and international organisations since the late 1980s. He is an active participant in international advocacy and has great knowledge and experience with regard to such bodies as the OSCE, the Cou...

This week Sergei Nikitin is on vacation and Simon Cosgrove is joined by Vyacheslav Bakhmin, co-chair of both the Moscow Helsinki Group and the Andrei Sakharov Centre in Moscow, and a well-known expert on civil society in Russia. A summary of the week's events, some of which are referred to in the discussion, can be found on our website  here . This podcast is in the Russian language.

This week Sergei Nikitin and Simon Cosgrove are joined by Aleksei Sokolov, head of the human rights organisation Pravovaya osnova, based in Ekaterinburg in Sverdlovsk region. A summary of the week's events, some of which are referred to in the discussion, can be found on our website  here . This podcast is in the Russian language.

This week Sergei Nikitin and Simon Cosgrove are joined by Jens Siegert, blogger, journalist and expert on civil society in Russia. The first part is an interview with Jens; in the second part Simon and Sergei discuss events of the past week in Russia, a summary of which can be found  here .

Sergei Nikitin and Simon Cosgrove discuss events of the past week in Russia, a summary of which can be found  here .

Sergei Nikitin and Simon Cosgrove discuss events of the past week in Russia, a summary of which can be found here .

Sergei Nikitin and Simon Cosgrove start the New Year with a discussion of events of the past week in Russia that have bearing on human rights.