U.S. Dept. of State - 03.08.2006

U.S. State Department's 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices

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AP: U.S. Report Slams Russia and Belarus

Summary of a U.S. House hearing on the report

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Associated Press - 03.10.2006

U.S. Report Slams Russia and Belarus

By Harry Dunphy

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States is criticizing the human rights records of Russia and Belarus but says in an annual State Department report that there were improvements in Ukraine and the Balkan countries.

The report said the most notable human rights development in Russia during 2005 was the continued centralization of power in the executive branch under President Vladimir Putin, which resulted in an erosion of the accountability of government leaders to the people.

"The government's human rights record in the continuing conflict in and around Chechnya remained poor," said the report, released Wednesday.

On the positive side, the report said the judiciary demonstrated greater independence in a number of cases, producing improvements in the criminal justice system. Russia also made progress, the report said, in combating trafficking in people.

The report said the human rights record of Belarus, where presidential elections are set for March 19, remained very poor and "worsened in some areas, with the government continuing to commit numerous serious abuses."

The report said the government of President Alexander Lukashenko reopened an investigation into the disappearance and presumed killing of television journalist Dmitry Zavadsky but made no serious effort to solve the case.

Credible evidence indicated government agents may have killed Zavadsky for reporting that government officials may have aided Chechen separatists.

U.S. President George W. Bush met last week with Zavadsky's wife, Svetlana, and Inna Krasovskaya, wife of a pro-democracy businessman who disappeared in 1999, to underscore his personal support for their cases.

In August, Lukashenko granted the Order for Service to the Motherland to Colonel Dmitry Pavlichenko, named in a Council of Europe report as having played a key role in Zavadsky's disappearance.

U.S. State Department officials said Pavlichenko played a role in the beating and detention last week of opposition presidential candidate Alexander Kozulin, who tried to enter a meeting chaired by Lukashenko.

The report said the number of reported political prisoners had increased.

It noted that last August, the prison sentence of opposition political figure Mikhail Marinich had been reduced from 5 years to 2 1/2. Marinich, a former government minister, was widely regarded as a likely opponent for Lukashenko in the elections.

The report gave a mixed review to Ukraine, saying its human rights record significantly improved in areas such as freedom of expression and right to assembly but remained poor in areas such as violent hazing of soldiers and anti-Semitic acts.

Among the improvements, the report noted "increased accountability by police officers" and gradual improvements in prison conditions.

The report said mass media made significant gains in independence.

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U.S. House - 03.16.2006

Hearing: State Dept. 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices


Summary by David Shulman, NCSJ

Monitoring Respect for Human Rights Around the World: 
A Review of the Country Reports Practices for 2005

Click here for panelists' full written statements

Rep. Chris Smith presided over this hearing by the House International Relations Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations. He and Rep. Donald Payne gave opening statements.

Panel I: 
Barry Lowenkron, Assistant Secretary, Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, State Dept.

Panel II:
Rev. Thomas Wenski, Committee on International Policy, U.S. Conf. of Catholic Bishops
Elisa Massimino, Washington Director, Human Rights First 
Nina Shea, Director, Center for Religious Freedom. Freedom House 
Ali al-Ahmed, Director, Institute for Gulf Affairs
Sharon Hom, Executive Director, Human Rights in China

Summaries of written statements [excerpts]:

Lowenkron traveled to Moscow in January to tell the Russian Government about the United States’s deepening concerns for NGOs. Upon arrival, he learned that the NGO law, quietly signed on January 10 by President Putin, had just been published. Over the next two days, he met with Russian and U.S.-based NGOs, Duma committee chairs, officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Human Rights Ombudsman, the Chair of the Presidential Human Rights Council, and representatives of independent media. The new law goes into effect April 1.

Many in the Russian Government deeply mistrust civil society, especially organizations that receive foreign funding and are engaged in politically sensitive activities such as human rights monitoring. Earlier this year, President Putin acknowledged the positive contributions of NGOs, but then warned against “foreign puppeteers.” Many Russian officials see U.S. promotion of democracy as part of a zero-sum game of geopolitical influence. Lowenkron defended the work of NGOs, telling Russian officials that democracy assistance is designed to help ensure that elections are free and fair, not to pick winners and losers.

He told his Russian interlocutors that NGOs can support governments and they can criticize governments, but NGOs should never be treated as enemies of governments.

Massimino: On Russia, this year’s Report is appropriately very strong, and constitutes an improvement over last year’s. This year’s Report highlight violations up front, in the overview section, per our suggestion last year. In addition, the Report creates new categories, including “Political Prisoners” within the section on fair trials. 

One important advance in recent years has been that the Reports are increasingly being translated into the principle languages of the countries covered. If made easily available, official translations of the Reports would be widely read on the Internet, and would serve as an antidote to misleading unofficial translations and reporting. Accessibility of the reports in native languages will also increase their usefulness to local human rights NGOs.

There has been significant progress made towards this goal. Last year, the State Department required all embassies to translate their country’s Report into the official language of the host country. This was welcome, although the utility was blunted by some significant delays in completing translations. This year, all U.S. Embassies have been instructed to post official translations of their Country Reports within 30 days of publication of the English version. It appears, however, that only a selection of translations are published on the main State Department website.

Shea: Russia's new law on NGOs will effect faith-based groups, among others. In spite of widespread concern and opposition, President Putin signed the law on January 10. The new law is part of an ongoing campaign to dismantle any meaningful institutional checks on the Kremlin's power. It gives authorities the power to isolate NGOs and human rights defenders from their international support networks and force them to shut down if they do not meet registration requirements. Organizations will be required to register with the government, detail their activities and submit to screening by a new regulatory bureaucracy, which will decide whether activities are permitted. Vague language will enable authorities to intimidate and control the NGO sector.

Under the law, government can deny registration to any domestic or foreign NGO if its “goals and objectives... create a threat to the sovereignty, political independence, territorial integrity, national unity, unique character, cultural heritage and national interests of the Russian Federation.” The Russian government will be allowed to send representatives to any NGO event, including internal meetings. This provision will deny basic rights to privacy and freedom from arbitrary state interference for these private groups.

Although the law does not go into effect until April, already there is increased pressure on NGOs, especially on organizations that work on human rights and the North Caucasus. In January, just days after President Putin signed the law, a Russian court banned two foreign NGOs (a UK charity and a German humanitarian organization) that were helping Chechen refugees. 

The report also details continued Russian government pressure on the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society. Stanislav Dmitrievsky, head of the Society, was convicted on February 3, 2006, under a counter-extremism law of inciting hatred or enmity on the basis of ethnicity and religion because he published statements of Chechen separatist leaders in the newspaper Pravozaschita. The report’s casualty figures for Chechnya underestimate by as much as fifty percent commonly cited figures.

The country report understates the level of international and Russian domestic concern over the NGO law. When the law was introduced in the Duma last November, Freedom House convened a meeting to discuss it. Representatives of major NGOs signed a joint letter to the Chairman of the Duma urging him to reject the draft law because it violated “the fundamental, universal rights of freedom of expression and association” and would undermine NGOs with intrusive and excessive regulations. NGOs in Russia also voiced their concern.

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