"I have bad news on Russia"

A héten az EU tagállamai és Oroszország kormány és államföi szinten találkoznak. Íme néhány szemelvény arról, ki is a Mi nagy stratégiai partnerünk...

"the Putin regime...has become more and more authoritarian, arbitrary, opaque, corrupt and unaccountable." Svetlana Gannushkina, Chairwoman of the Civic Assistance Committee, agreed that "human rights are violated on a daily basis in Russia...police violence is part and parcel of the system," and that in practice, the Federal Security Service (FSB) "decides who lives and who dies, and who will or will not be assassinated."

Macha Chichtchenkova, from FIDH, Paris, spoke about the rise of ultranationalist groups in the country that have been threatening civil society actors and journalists. She related stories of far-right websites that provide lists of people opposed to their views, and which call on their supporters to kill them, providing addresses and personal details of their opponents.

Vitaliy Yarochevskiy, Deputy Chief Editor of Novaya Gazeta, the newspaper for which Anna Politkovskaya had been working, also spoke about pressure exerted on journalists. Ever since recent media acquisitions, "there are practically no independent media left in Russia," he said. "The heads of TV stations are clones of each other, who spread the regime's propaganda," he added, and "facts and commentary are inextricably linked" in their programmes.

Soros az autoriter orosz rezsimre hívja fel a figyelmet: "I have bad news on Russia," he said, explaining that it "has emerged as an authoritarian state" using natural resources to "assert its power" by setting up shady joint ventures in energy with foreign firms. Moscow "wants to control all institutions of democracy," he said highlighting attempts by the Kremlin to set up "government-organised non-governmental organisations." "Faced with this, Europe has a problem and there is a reluctance to recognise that," he concluded.