Tag: Russia

2024: A deadly year for journalists


Journalists are dying in large numbers around the world. Gaza the deadliest

July 2024

Journalist have a bad press and sometimes rate along with estate agents (realtors) in public’s low esteem. It is a shame that the antics of those working at the tabloid end of the market producing biased and and highly distorted stories and who were collectively engaged in phone hacking, should taint the whole sector. We depend on journalists to find out what is going on and tell us. With ever more secretive governments, the steady rise of authoritarianism and governments in hock to commercial interests, we do rather depend on such people to shine a light on it all depressing though it may be. Journalism is under threat from social media and it is not unusual for find young people who do not engage with either newspapers or with mainstream TV at all.

Russia

The latest edition of Amnesty Now describes some of the worst instances. 124 journalists were killed last year while doing their job. The Russian journalist Maria Ponomarenko was arrested following her report of an attack by the Russians on a theatre which had been sheltering civilians. The Russians denied anyone was killed in the attack and said she was disseminating false information and sentenced her to 6 years imprisonment.

In prison she has experienced ill-treatment including spells of solitary confinement in a punishment cell designed to break prisoner’s spirits. She was then sent to a penal colony 900 kilometres from her home town making family visits impossible. Russia is one of the worst offenders with 30 journalists at least behind bars.

Afghanistan

Amnesty reports that since the Taliban took control in 2021, press freedom has all but evaporated. All information is controlled by the government. Mahdi Ansari was working for the Afghan News Agency when he was arrested without cause. He was kept in solitary confinement and when he finally arrived in court he was denied a lawyer and sentenced to a year and a half in prison for ‘spreading propaganda’. The Afghanistan Journalists Center have estimated 50 journalist detentions in 2024. The human rights situation in the country is appalling and are almost non-existent for women.

Israel and Gaza

Gaza is the deadliest place for journalists where around 70% of all deaths occur. Wearing a press jackets is no longer a protection but makes you a target according to the Sunday Times.

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Россия запрещает Амнистию


Russia bans Amnesty International

May 2025

The Prosecutor General’s Office announced on 19 May that Amnesty would be closed in Russia. It claimed it was ‘promoting Russophobic projects’ and that it was an ‘undesirable organisation’. Amnesty thus joins many other organisations both within Russia and outside which have been banned, marginalised or forced to toe the party line.

“You must be doing something right if the Kremlin bans you,” Amnesty International Secretary General

Agnès Callamard said in a statement. “This decision is part of the Russian government’s broader effort to silence dissent and isolate civil society.” Scores of activists and dissidents have been imprisoned, killed or exiled, where independent media has been smeared, blocked or forced to self-censor, and where civil society organizations have been outlawed or liquidated. Navalny was just one of many who tried to highlight the corruption which is rampant in the state and who died in questionable circumstances in a remote prison camp in February last year.

The closure will not hinder efforts to highlight the civil and human rights issues in Russia.

Picture – Prosecutor General, Moscow, kremlin.ru

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North Korea


North Korea admits to using the death penalty

November 2024

North Korea is back in the news recently having sent thousands of troops to aid the Russians in their invasion of Ukraine. They are also supplying munitions in return for, it is thought, technological help from Russia. They are also engaged in using the death penalty and we are reproducing a post from Amnesty on this.

North Korea has admitted carrying out public executions in a rare admission about its treatment of prisoners, ironically made during an effort to defend and justify its human rights record. Rights organisations have long accused Pyongyang of shooting dead convicts in public, and defectors from the isolated country have given gruesome accounts of North Korean executioners tormenting condemned prisoners, burning and mutilating them after death and forcing others to look at their corpses.

On one occasion, an estimated crowd of 25,000 in the northern city of Hyesan was forced to watch as nine people were executed by firing squad for having slaughtered government-owned cattle and distributing the meat to businesses.
“I kept thinking of the horrific scene of yesterday’s shooting, so I couldn’t sleep all night and trembled with fear,” one resident said.

North Korea defended its controversial law dictating harsh penalties for consuming foreign media on Thursday, while admitting that it carries out public executions and imprisons perpetrators of “anti-state” crimes. The DPRK government made the rare acknowledgement during the U.N.’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the country in Geneva, which examines the human rights record of member states every four to five years.

At a session on 14 November, a North Korea official offered striking admissions of human rights abuses in the country, even as he sought to justify them under state policies.
On the death penalty, Park said the DPRK executes individuals “who committed extremely serious crimes,” including publicly. 

Until now, North Korea has denied staging public executions and has sought to promote the idea that there is a legal framework with safeguards for treatment of prisoners.

Public executions are considered to be a way to keep the population in line. According to witness testimonies from the DPRK, public executions for watching or distributing South Korean films and drug smuggling have increased in recent years, as well sentences for “crimes against the regime”.

Public executions of young North Koreans are on the rise, Seoul says, as Pyongyang seeks to stamp out South Korea’s cultural influence. One North Korean defector to the South recounted witnessing the public execution of a 22-year-old in South Hwanghae province in 2022. The young man’s crimes were listening to 70 South Korean songs and watching and sharing three South Korean films.

The death penalty has always been available in North Korea’s legal system but a commentary on the North Korean Criminal Law 3, published by the North Korean authorities in 1957, suggests that the death penalty will eventually be abolished in North Korea and is presently utilised as a last resort.

The revised Criminal Code of 1987 mentions the death penalty as one of two kinds of “basic penalties” to be imposed on criminal offenders. The minimum age for imposition was lowered from 18 to 17 and the prohibition against the lowering of human dignity was scrapped. Under the 1987 Criminal Code, the death penalty is mandatory for activities “in collusion with imperialists” aimed at “suppressing the national-liberation struggle” and the revolutionary struggle for reunification and independence” or for “acts of betraying the Nation to imperialists”
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Death penalty report


April 2024

We are pleased to attach this month’s report for the period mid March to mid April thanks for group member Lesley for the work in compiling it. Reports include those from USA, Congo, Pakistan and Russia.

Report; March – April (Word)Download
The Salisbury group was established 50 years ago this year
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Fascinating discussions at Lviv Book Forum


Several fascinating discussions at the Lviv Book Forum organised by the Hay Festival. Serious debate about the role of oligarchs in British cultural and political life

October 2022

If you missed the debates at the Lviv Book Forum you missed some of the best debates this year especially its focus on the role of Russian oligarchs and their dirty money in influencing British cultural and political life. Debates of this nature seldom make it into the open air in Britain, one reason being – as was explained – because of the effective lack of free speech in the UK arising from the punitive nature of our libel laws. Oligarchs and other wealthy individuals can launch what are termed SLAPPs (Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation) which effectively silence critics and frighten publishers and journalists. Costing millions to defend they exert a chilling effect in the UK and make Britain the libel capital of the world.

Why do Russians come to Britain and establish themselves here? This was a major part of the discussion because they are to be found in other parts of the world. There were a number of factors which made Britain particularly attractive it was explained. Firstly, English which was spoken internationally. Secondly, it was the no questions asked culture here: no one asked where the money came from and the agencies which were supposed to check on this kind of thing, looked the other way. Our private schools were another attraction as was easy access to and entry into, the political elite. Members of the Lords for example, were happy to sit on various boards of companies set up by the oligarchs. This easy access to the elite meant all sorts of powerful people were happy to attend parties where political influence took place. Fourthly, Oliver Bullough also spoke of the wide range of services offered in London for example, legal, financial and public relations. The ‘easy come, easy go’ culture combined to make London the key magnet for dirty money and illegal wealth.

One of the participants, Catherine Belton, spoke of the ease with which assets were acquired for example football clubs such as Chelsea. This provided further cultural power and how sports journalists were only too happy to criticise her work in return of favours and interviews with key players.

Misha Glenny explained the origins of the whole process which (as ever) started during Mrs Thatcher’s premiership although he said it carried on under Major, Blair and Brown and is well and truly alive today. Mrs Thatcher’s central plank was to reduce subsidies for the arts and encourage private patronage. This opened to door for wealthy individuals to put money into galleries, museums and orchestras and other cultural institutions. It also gave them influence over the sort of things which are put on.

But more importantly, it gave them a philanthropic reputation which brings us back to the libel issue because, to pursue a libel claim, you had to establish a reputation to defend here. Their philanthropy did this even though the sums involved were peanuts in terms of the wealth extracted from Russia.

The Independent (?) online newspaper, owned by an oligarch was give as an example with a piece it published regretting the non-invitation to Vladimir Putin to the Queen’s funeral.

In the following day’s session, Phillippe Sands spoke of the huge sums given to the Conservative party. He also spoke of the somewhat different opinion in the UK of Boris Johnson to that which he enjoys in Ukraine. The view in the UK was more ambiguous and even sinister. The point being that when Russia first started on its activities in that country, there were many in the UK who were able to downplay its importance and many happy to claim that ‘Ukraine was always part of Russia’.

The combination of these forces, the highly successful political and cultural influence the oligarchs had acquired, the ‘no questions asked’ financial milieu and the ease with which money could be siphoned off to network of tax havens centred on London, combined with massively expensive and oppressive libel laws, meant the UK’s political process has been compromised.

The implication for human rights is clear. Wealth and influence buys silence and complicity.

Matters changed with the invasion in February. Oligarch’s assets were frozen and the plight of Ukrainians could no longer be brushed away. Film of Russia’s activities, the massive number of human rights abuses and evidence of torture together with bombing civilian targets, became obvious to all. Suddenly, things Ukrainian were everywhere, with a concert at the Albert Hall for example and Ukrainian food being more visible. However, the speakers were not convinced this would be permanent. The scale of their financial power and the likelihood of compassion fatigue would probably mean over time, their steady return and influence.

If you missed it then you can access it via this link. Books referred to:

Moneyland, Oliver Bullough,

McMafia, Misha Glenny

Putin’s People, Catherine Belton

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Death Penalty report


Death Penalty report for August – September

September 2022

We are pleased to attach the monthly death penalty report with thanks to group member Lesley for the work in compiling it. Note it contains no information about China which is believed to execute more of its citizens than the rest of the world put together, but the details are a state secret.

Report (Word)Download

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Death Penalty report: March – April


We are pleased to attach our monthly death penalty report for March – April 2022 thanks to group member Lesley for the work in compiling it. Singapore features quite strongly this month. Note that Chiana, which is believed to execute more of its citizens than the rest of the world combined, does not feature as details are a state secret.

Report (Word)Download
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Formula 1 in Saudi


Can nothing stop the F1 circus?

Despite the enormous scale of death and destruction taking in place in Yemen by Saudi Arabia, the F1 Grand Prix still took place there (Saudi).  The Saudi regime is desperately keen to use sport as a means to whitewash its appalling human rights record.  Not only is it causing misery in Yemen but it has recently executed 81 people in a single day in Saudi itself almost certainly after torture was used to extract confessions.  Executions are usually carried out by beheading. 

There was a time when sport was confined to the back pages of newspapers or at the end of news bulletins.  It was about sport itself with reports of competitions, league tables or medals won.  The use of sport to promote nations has a long history and in recent times we have seen enormous sums spent by regimes to secure medals at the Olympics.  Recently, the notion of ‘sports washing’ has become established with Saudi Arabia a prominent player.  In addition to boxing promotions, golf and Formula 1, it has poured a huge sum into Newcastle United football club. 

A recent edition of the Campaign Against the Arms Trade, CAAT, newsletter (Issue 262) provides an update on the destruction in Yemen.  In November, the UN estimated that 377,000 will have died.  This would be the total to the end of 2021.  Unfortunately, they say, ‘the escalating death toll and overwhelming evidence of repeated breaches of international humanitarian law have done little to curb the arms dealers: to them it represent a business opportunity’.  Since the bombing of Yemen began in 2015, the value of UK sales to Saudi Arabia amounts to £20 billion.  Further details and background can be found on the Mwatana site.

CAAT reports that the UN failed to renew the mandate in October for the Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen following intense lobbying of council members by the Saudi regime.

Saudi Arabia

Human rights infringements continue in the country itself.  Critics of the government or ruling family are routinely jailed.  Prejudice against women and the LGBT community is practised.  Many people are executed in barbaric fashion after wholly unsatisfactory trials.  Reports from Human Rights Watch and Amnesty provide further details.

No impact on F1

None of this seems to have an impact on Formula 1.  It is interesting to note however that, following the invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces, the F1 race due to take place in Sochi this year was quickly cancelled.  It seems truly bizarre that they were able to act with great speed following the Ukraine invasion but prolonged death, destruction and egregious human rights abuses in Yemen and Saudi has not made any impression.  Could it be the considerable publicity the war has attracted and the actions being taken against Russian oligarchs meant that any attempt by F1 to carry on as usual was simply not possible?  Whereas, what is going on in Saudi and Yemen only rarely makes it onto the front pages thus enabling them to carry on with business as usual. 

Saudi is spending billions on its campaign to improve its image and holding various sporting events and some sporting authorities seem immune to what is going on.  It seems as though the lure of money – and lots of it – is too great.  They exist, as one commentator puts it, in a vacuum.  Perhaps we should not be too surprised at F1’s flimsy approach to human rights when its former boss Bernie Ecclestone was interviewed on Times Radio defending President Putin as an ‘honourable man’. 

Sources: HRW; Amnesty; Daily Express; Guardian; al Jazeera; BBC

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Russia closes human rights group


The Supreme Court in Moscow today (Tuesday, 28 December 2021) ordered the closure of the human rights group Memorial is a move which is seen as another step in the route to greater authoritarianism by President Putin in Russia. The group fell foul of the ‘foreign agent’ law, a law passed in 2016 to make life difficult for human rights groups to operate in the country. The prosecution accused the group of ‘creating a false image of USSR as a terrorist state’. Memorial sought to shed light on the horrors of the Stalin era when millions died in a vast network of gulags.

Amnesty International described the decision as ‘a grave insult to the victims of the Russian gulag’. With suppression of opposition parties – Navalny is imprisoned for example – and the intimidation or murder of journalists, Russia is living up to its sobriquet of a ‘gangster state’.

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Human rights group in Russia under threat


International Memorial is under threat of being dissolved

International Memorial – full name International Historical Educational Charitable and Human Rights Society is under threat of being dissolved by the Russian authorities. Based in Moscow, The Society investigates some of the terrible tragedies under the Soviet era and those being committed by the Russian government today.

We have today added a link to their website in the list of sites at the bottom of this site.

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