The president wants a new council – Newspaper Kommersant No. 214 (7415) of 11/18/2022

Before the meeting with the Human Rights Council (HRC), Vladimir Putin noticeably changed its composition. For example, journalist Nikolai Svanidze, founder of the Committee Against Torture Igor Kalyapin, journalist Ekaterina Vinokurova, as well as several well-known human rights activists were expelled by presidential decree. As previously reported by Kommersant, it was these members of the HRC who suggested that their colleagues ask Vladimir Putin sharp questions related to the military operation. Instead, ten recruits were included in the council, for example, Komsomolskaya Pravda war correspondent Alexander Kots and deputy of the People’s Council of the DPR Elena Shishkina. The head of the Human Rights Council, Valery Fadeev, considers such a rotation a “routine”, those expelled from the council – “revenge” for active work, presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov – “the most correct reflection of civil society.”

Decree “On amendments to the composition of the HRC” was published on the afternoon of November 17, it refers to the exclusion of ten people. The four names on this list were to be expected. Human rights activist, Professor of the Department of Psychology at Moscow State University Alexander Asmolov announced back in March that he was leaving the Human Rights Council, stating “the inconsistency of what is happening around with human rights.” Three more members of the HRC – Andrei Babushkin, Galina Osokina and Maria Artemova – were expelled from the council posthumously.

But the removal of the remaining six people caused a strong reaction from the Russian human rights community.

Firstly, because by presidential decree the following were excluded from the council: historian and journalism professor Nikolai Svanidze, founder of the “Committee against Torture” (liquidated after 22 years of work and recognition as a foreign agent) Igor Kalyapin, journalists Ekaterina Vinokurova and Ivan Zasursky, head of the analytical center “ Owl” (researches manifestations of xenophobia and extremism, included in the register of foreign agents) Alexander Verkhovsky and Executive Secretary of the Human Rights Council of St. Petersburg Natalia Evdokimova. All of them either sharply criticized the decision to send Russian troops into the territory of Ukraine, or at least called for an immediate truce.

Secondly, the change in the composition of the HRC took place on the eve of the annual meeting with Vladimir Putin in December. It was the expelled members of the council who planned, as “Kommersant” saidto discuss with the president problems with mobilization, the practice of judicial punishments for “discrediting the actions of the army”, a video with the murder of a man with a sledgehammer, as well as the lack of legal grounds for recruiting prisoners into PMCs.

Thirdly, because those who were expelled were replaced by not the most expected people in the council. So, the journalist of “Komsomolskaya Pravda” Alexander Kots, one of the founders of the subculture of “military correspondents” – military bloggers, became a member of the HRC. Also, Elena Shishkina, a member of the presidium of the Free Donbass movement, a deputy of the People’s Council of the DPR, was admitted to the council. She, for example, “with great joy and hope” supported in March the creation of a “people’s tribunal” over Russia’s opponents. Another member of the Human Rights Council was the executive secretary of the PMC of Moscow, Alexei Melnikov, known for his active support of the special operation.

Among the new members of the HRC was also Sergei Rukshin, a laureate of the title of “People’s Teacher”, a professor at the Department of Mathematical Analysis of the Herzen Russian State Pedagogical University, who once trained famous mathematicians, including Grigory Perelman. Among the “recruits” also appear: the chairman of the Writers’ Union of Russia, military journalist Nikolai Ivanov; Commissioner for Children’s Rights of the Ulyanovsk Region Ekaterina Smoroda; Yulia Belekhova, head of the executive committee of the Popular Front for Russia movement, and others. There are ten people in total.

“Under the new circumstances, other individuals are becoming leaders of public opinion… they can best represent civil society, be the most correct reflection of civil society,” Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov explained on Thursday. And the chairman of the Human Rights Council, Valery Fadeev, said «Ъ-FM»that changing the composition of the council is a “routine procedure” that is “not connected” with the upcoming meeting of the HRC and Vladimir Putin.

Journalist Yekaterina Vinokurova, expelled from the HRC, considers the council’s rotation this year “demonstrative.” She links it to “frictions over radicalizing the agenda of the meeting” with the president in December.

Ms. Vinokurova wanted to discuss with Vladimir Putin the application of the new provisions of the Criminal Code and the Code of Administrative Offenses, which prohibit the “discrediting” of the actions of the army and the “public dissemination of false information” about it. In an interview with Kommersant, Ms. Vinokurova recalled the president’s statement at a meeting with members of the HRC in 2012. Then Vladimir Putin told them: “I will do my best not to be offended by anything I hear from you, but please don’t be offended either.” “Now we have come to what to say (to the president.— “b”) far from everything is possible, ”the journalist believes.

However, she has another version of the reason for the exception – “revenge for requests.” A week ago, six members of the HRC turned to the head of the Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, about a video of a man being killed with a sledgehammer. The entry appeared on social networks with the explanation that the victim was a Russian citizen Yevgeny Nuzhin. It is known that he served a long term in a colony, where he allegedly voluntarily enlisted in a PMC. Once in the combat zone, he surrendered and gave an interview to the Ukrainian media. After that, Mr. Nuzhin somehow fell into the hands of former comrades-in-arms – and was defiantly “executed for treason.” Human rights activists asked the head of the UK to check all this information. The letter was redirected to the Federal Penitentiary Service, where they only answered that the law does not provide for the early release of prisoners even to be sent to the war zone. Two of the six signatories to the request have now been removed from the HRC.

Prior to this, human rights activists asked the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation Igor Krasnov to check reports on the recruitment of prisoners in PMCs. He also forwarded the letter to the Federal Penitentiary Service. The appeal was signed by six people, five of them are now excluded.

The logic of “revenge for the request”, however, does not fit the fact that the journalist Eva Merkacheva, who was the initiator and co-author of appeals to the Prosecutor General’s Office and the TFR, remained in the HRC.

She admitted to Kommersant that she was “very worried” about the fate of Igor Kalyapin: “He is the legislator of the fight against torture, the person who summed up massive analytical data for this, created a whole system to counter violence in the law enforcement system. I hope that threats to him will remain just words.” Mrs. Merkacheva is referring to the threats repeatedly made against Mr. Kalyapin by the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov. In addition, there have been repeated attempts to initiate criminal cases against the human rights activist under various pretexts. In this regard, his colleagues on the committee and the HRC expressed the opinion that Igor Kalyapin from the revenge of the security forces “is saved only by the status of a member of the presidential council”, which he has now lost.

“Now the topic of violation of civil political rights or violence in law enforcement agencies, that is, torture, is not a priority,” Igor Kalyapin told Kommersant. “Excesses in the army, problems of mobilization – they will talk about this (at a meeting.— “b”), it is Putin who is still willing to listen. But about torture and civil rights, apparently, he doesn’t want to hear more in public. My colleague Svanidze was sure that we would be purged from the HRC even before the meeting with the president.” “I expected this,” Mr. Svanidze told Kommersant. “And yes, of course, my exclusion is due to my anti-war position.” He planned to speak with the president about a de facto ban on protests, including events critical of the decision to send troops to Ukraine.

Now the efficiency of the HRC will fall even more in terms of civil rights and freedoms, Alexander Verkhovsky regrets. He told Kommersant that he announced “completely non-revolutionary topics” for a meeting with the president, according to the profile of his analytical center. “I wanted to talk about the rapidly growing mass of sentences for supposedly “extremist” statements. I had quite specific and practical proposals, not radical ones. The goal was to influence the practice, not to declare something,” said Mr. Verkhovsky. “I won’t guess why I was expelled, you can’t guess here.”

Maria Starikova