Russian human rights activists prevent “trolls”
The international organization Amnesty international (AI) presented a report on the situation of human rights defenders in the world. The authors of the report note the activity “paid trolls” who spread false information to discredit human rights defenders and journalists in Russia. The organization’s representative believes that the situation in Russia is deteriorating every year.
The attention of Amnesty International attracted the amendments clarifying the definition of “political activity” and the law “On noncommercial organizations”. As AI believes, because of these amendments, many organizations in Russia have to refuse foreign funding in order not to get into the list of so-called foreign agents.
Media Manager Amnesty International Alexander Artemyev noted that the situation in Russia is “getting worse every year.” “On the organization imposed a lot of restrictions. Under the law came many of the organizations that were not fall within its ambit. For the prosecution of human rights civil society organizations used a completely false pretext,” — explained Mr. Artemiev “b”. He also reported that “cases of harassment of individual activists.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin accuses the organization in the deterioration of the climate in civil society. Along with him are called Chinese President XI Jinping and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi and other leaders. All of them, according to AI Secretary General Salil Shetty, “increasingly undermine the foundations necessary for the existence of a free, just and equitable society.”
It is also noted that in Russia and in Mexico the network of “paid trolls” are more and more campaigns against human rights defenders and journalists. Violations were found in the Western countries: in the UK police spying on journalists to identify the sources of information to the media, said the AI report.
The head of the international human rights group Agora Pavel Chikov noted that in addition to the Internet attacks and the law on “foreign agents”, civil activists in Russia have to deal with “acts of physical violence, attacks”. “Physical violence is the most dangerous problem. There is at least a positive thing that stopped the killings of civil society activists,” said the defender.
The report notes the large number of attacks on human rights defenders as governments and ordinary people. The document says that in 2016 the world for engaging in human rights activities, was killed 281 people. The figure for the year increased almost twice — in 2015 year, there were 156 murders of human rights defenders.
Vasily Kuznetsov