Russia’s human rights situation has been deteriorating for years, but in the two years since Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the authorities’ campaign of repression has accelerated alarmingly. Reporting to the UN Human Rights Council last month, the UN special rapporteur on Russia captured this pointedly, stating: “systematic human rights violations are part of a government strategy to control all spheres of life, public and private, and to suppress dissent.”
Russia’s civic activists are facing suffocating repression but remain determined to see rights restored. This week in Geneva, the UN Human Rights Council can send them a strong message that their calls for international scrutiny are being heard and that the international human rights community stands with them by renewing the special rapporteur’s mandate.
In Russia, individuals targeted for politically motivated prosecution face intimidation, brutal violence, and ill-treatment and other mistreatment in detention. Over 10,000 administrative charges have been brought for criticizing Russia’s war against Ukraine in 2024. Of the 545 people criminally prosecuted on bogus “false information” or “discreditation” charges, 177 have been convicted since October 2023, and 124 remain imprisoned. Activists who fled the country are convicted in absentia on war censorship, extremism, and other politically motivated charges, not to mention the Kremlin’s efforts to forcibly return them to Russia.
The authorities keep expanding the scope of their legislative attack on civil society and hardening the penalties. In 2024, the Justice Ministry designated 108 people and entities as “foreign agents,” bringing the total number to 859 by October. Last year, authorities went so far as to outlaw the “international LGBT Movement” as an “extremist organization.” They’ve already started using this ruling to penalize people for displaying “LGBT symbols.”
With each addition to the Kremlin’s repressive arsenal, Russia’s human rights crisis becomes ever more dire. Renewing the special rapporteur would maintain a vital point of contact for Russian civil society within the UN human rights system and ensure independent monitoring and attention as human rights defenders, journalists, and activists are being silenced through intimidation, harassment, and harsh punishment for legitimate human rights work. By renewing the special rapporteur’s mandate, the UN Human Rights Council will signal to Russian authorities that the international community remains unwavering in its support of Russian civil society’s courageous stand against the Russian governments’ grave human rights violations, committed at home or abroad.
