Law enforcement versus human rights defenders: how the Russian state persecutes human rights defenders

Русская версияIntroductionIn Russia, you always keep waiting. You are always on alert with your devices; at home, there is a rule not to open the door to anyone, especially the police. You are constantly waiting. I even noticed that I learned to hear the building’s front door open. When I hear the front door open early in the morning, I feel tension in my body. For a search, they always come in the morning. What about a lawyer? If they come to a lawyer with a search warrant, it means that criminal proceedings are initiated against the lawyer. Because all of us were politically active in 2022 and 2023, and considering the common court practices concerning fakes and discrediting, you clearly understand that you can become a target of a criminal investigation at any moment. If it is so, then you’ll be in custody with a probability of 99%. If you are a lawyer, you cannot opt for house arrest; you cannot opt for any other measure of restraint. No chance.This is the answer of a human rights activist, a respondent of OVD-Info, to the question, «Do you feel safe?» The pressure associated with human rights activism and its devastating effects have been noticed by the majority of respondents in Russia. In Russia and abroad, those who are involved in human rights activism, i.e., human rights activists working with vulnerable social groups, experts operating with conscientious objectors from military service, famous lawyers with an attorney licence, and anonymous activists helping to evacuate prosecuted activists, all of them face the risk of prosecution, deprivation of rights and obstruction of their work. Nonetheless, this pressure and its consequences are often not the focus of public and expert attention, even though safety and access to the efficient work of human rights activists affect human rights as a whole.