Human Rights in Putin's Russia (Event Summary)

Ponamarev Summary.PDF"Human Rights in Putin''s Russia"
Lev Ponomarev, Doctor of Physics, Executive Director of the All-Russian movement "For Human Rights, "Editor-in-Chief of the newspaper "For Human Rights."

Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project and the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy Harvard University, January 31, 2001

Summary by David Rekhviashvili

Ben Dunlap, researcher at the Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project and editor of SDI''s bi-monthly bulletin Russia Watch, opened the meeting by introducing Dr. Lev Ponomarev to the audience and telling briefly about his professional background. Dr. Ponomarev holds a Ph.D. and a higher Doctoral Degree in physics. During Soviet times, Dr. Ponomarev was close to the dissident movement. In 1988 he conceived and became one of the founders of the All Russian society in memory of victims of political repression, MEMORIAL. Dr. Ponomarev was instrumental in drawing Andrei Sakharov into MEMORIAL and played an integral part in Sakharov''s campaign for election to the Soviet Deputies in 1989. Dr. Ponomarev was one of the founders, and from 1990-1996 was a co-chairman of the All Russian political movement, Democratic Russia, which was the leading democratic organization in Russia from 1990-1992. In 1997, he created and became chairman of the public organization Hot Line, which is the organization that monitors the observance of human rights in Moscow. At the time, he also organized and became the executive director of the movement, For Human Rights. This movement is the only national organization that unites dozens of human rights centers from sixty regions in Russia. In that capacity, Dr. Ponomarev is also the editor-in-chief of a human rights monthly newsletter, also called For Human Rights. He created and became one of the most active members of the Common Action Group, the organization that unites prominent human rights activists in Russia. Most recently, Dr. Ponomarev played an integral role in organizing the First All-Russian Emergency Congress in Defense of Human Rights, which took place in Moscow in January 2001.

Lev Ponomarev described the work of a typical human rights organization in Russia in the first part of his presentation. Then he shed some light on the state of human rights under President Putin, the threats to individual freedoms, and the proceedings of the All-Russian Emergency Human Rights Congress held in Moscow on January 20-21, 2001. Dr. Ponomarev told the audience that human rights organizations deal with citizen complaints about abuses from the government or from any government bureaucrat, but not about any other type of conflicts, for example conflicts between individuals. After registering citizens'' complaints, human rights organizations evaluate and assess the situation and then provide free legal advice. At the next stage of their activity, human rights organizations take it upon themselves to advocate for those citizens whose rights were violated. That advocacy activity involves bringing cases to the attention of high-ranking government authorities. It is very important in Russia''s current environment to do that for people, because government officials may not take a complaint registered by an individual seriously. They will ignore it for an indefinite period of time. If a complaint is registered by a human rights organization and is signed by a human rights activist whose name is relatively well known, officials pay more attention to it. If the case turns out to be particularly noteworthy, human rights organizations try to attract the media. Some human rights organizations, including For Human Rights, can call a press conference or get information published in the newspaper or on the TV. This is a very important function and, according to Mr. Ponomarev, the ability to get the information on abuses published makes these human rights organizations influential.

Describing the work of the For Human Rights organization, Mr. Ponomarev said that the total volume of its operations is about 1,500 - 2,000 letters per year. The organization writes complaints to the Presidential Administration and to various public prosecutor offices. However, even such an influential organization as For Human Rights, cannot do anything on its own. It can only register a complaint and write or call the prosecutor''s office - the prosecutor''s office is the main government entity that can launch a case and can pursue it. If the prosecutor''s office does not pay due attention to the violation, the human rights organization will address another government organization and will try to seek remedy through its assistance. Lev Ponomarev emphasized the paradoxical meaning of the situation, when in order to complain about the actions of government bureaucrats, laws require to ask help of another government entity. He then continued and said that despite all the difficulties and irregularities in laws, human rights organizations manage to accumulate a significant volume of information about illegal activities of certain government institutions and then concentrate their efforts on trying to change things with these agencies, for instance by publicizing information on the violations they commit.

Then Mr. Ponomarev described the structure of the Russian human rights movement. Most human rights organizations are united under the umbrella of one of the several all-Russian human rights organizations. These all-Russian organizations are MEMORIAL, one of the oldest human rights organization in Russia, which provides help to former political prisoners and tries to rehabilitate them, the Committee of Soldiers'' Mothers, an organization that deals with abuses directed toward young soldiers, the Civil Assistance organization, which helps people who were forced to migrate, For Human Rights, which is a general purpose human rights organization, providing help in various areas, and several other organizations. For Human Rights was founded in 1997 and its appearance led to the creation of the round table of human rights organizations in Moscow that was called the Common Action Group, which included all the above-mentioned all-Russian organizations and various individual human rights activists.

The last important event that was put together by Common Cause was the Emergency Congress in Defense of Human Rights, which took place in Moscow in January 2001. Lev Ponomarev said that this was a unique kind of conference, happening in Russia for the first time. It was called an emergency congress in order to draw the attention of the participants and of the public to the deterioration in the human rights situation in Russia that started in the middle of 2000. If human rights activists issued individual statements regarding each specific violation, they would not get published and would not get press or TV coverage. But by assembling a group of influential human rights personalities and organizations— the conference gathered over 100 organizations and over 1,200 participants and guests-the human rights community managed to attract public attention and get press coverage. Yet, despite the presence of some 180 journalists accredited for the conference, only two newspapers gave serious commentaries about the event. The remaining coverage was either negative or incompetent. The negative coverage of the congress was so well organized that it resembled the type of anti-human rights propaganda that existed under Soviet rule. However, according to Mr. Ponomarev, this kind of reaction to the congress has a positive side— it means that the event was noticed and recognized as a threat by people who act against the human rights ideology.

The work of the emergency congress led to the adoption of several resolutions. The first one was on Chechnya. It called for the immediate resumption of negotiations with Maskhadov. This resolution was taken to Strasbourg and it was announced there. The participants of the congress spoke against the weakening of Western resolve and pressure on Russia in regards to the war in Chechnya and accused the West of complacency and inconsistency in dealing with Russian government on this issue. The second resolution that was adopted was to protect the constitutional structure of the Russian Federation. Lev Ponomarev said that a legislative proposal has been created calling for a simplified procedure that would allow for faster and easier changing of the constitution. Activists of the congress and other members of the Russian liberal elite view this as an attempt to pass non-democratic changes to the constitution, specifically to the chapters that deal with human rights. And although President Putin declared that he does not intend to change the constitution, according to Mr. Ponomarev the danger of such changes being made in the future does exist. That is why in its resolution the congress proposed a hands-off approach, declaring that no amendments to the constitution should be made in the near future. Besides these two main resolutions the congress adopted over 30 other resolutions that were less political in nature. But the most important achievement of the congress, according to Lev Ponomarev, was the decision to create working groups that would concentrate on different aspects of human rights and then present the results of their work at the next congress. Mr. Ponomarev emphasized that although the congress did not formally create a new entity, a new kind of umbrella organization that would be formally registered and take the place of the human rights organizations, in reality this is what happened at this congress. All human rights organizations got together, and de facto they are going to work together as one unified force.
Discussion

Dr. Ponomarev answered questions and elaborated on additional points during the discussion. Below are some of the highlights.

Q: Is there a governmental agency or an office at the President''s Administration, perhaps, that is in charge of human rights— that is responsible for monitoring human rights?

A: First of all, the prosecutor''s office has to be in charge of the protection of human rights. Another body that is in charge of this is the ombudsman''s office, headed by the Ombudsman for Human Rights of the Russian Federation, which is an elected position. This specific person, whose name is Oleg Mironov, was a former communist. He used to work very poorly, but now he is improving, and our organization is working in contact with him. As a matter of fact, he addressed our congress. We liked his speech— it was very positive and aggressive. He said that he was going after human rights violations, and that he wants to continue working with us. Naturally enough, as a result of his increased activity, we learned that certain structures connected with the FSB and with President''s office are trying to remove him from his position. Thirdly, there is a President''s Commission on Human Rights in the Executive Branch. They do nothing. The head of this commission addressed our congress as well, and the sense of his presentation was that everything is fine with human rights in Russia. There are no violations. To my surprise, instead of booing him out of the congress, people simply kept quiet and reacted to him as people would react to a madman.

Q: I would like to ask for clarification on what you meant by saying that the West had betrayed the Russian human rights movement on the issue of Chechnya.

A: I think by allowing Russia''s vote on the last session the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), the West betrayed our struggle for human rights. We believe that what happens in Chechnya, and what is happening is Chechnya is very alarming. We discussed the term "genocide" during our congress. It is a legal term, and we were very concerned about not abusing this term. But we used different formulations, for example, the "first signs of genocide," or the "beginning of genocide," or the "symptoms of genocide." But in the face of hundreds of thousands of people being killed, people dying in Chechnya, we believe that the West needs to apply more pressure on Russia. By being complacent, by playing along with Putin, the West betrays Russia''s true interests. Our position is such that we are not against using force in Chechnya. Moreover, having troops there is a very good way to begin negotiations— from a position of power. We do believe that it is necessary to fight against the bandits. We believe that right now is the best time to start negotiating with Chechen leaders, while the troops are in Chechnya.