- Thread starter
- Staff
- #1
Dadparvar
Staff member
- Nov 11, 2016
- 11,273
- 0
- 6
The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Russian Federation on Monday presented a report to the Human Rights Council, stating that Russian security services have assassinated or attempted to assassinate dissidents across Europe and have been linked to suspected poisonings as part of a ‘systematic, institutionalized’ campaign to silence critics abroad. The report calls for a binding UN convention to close what its author called a “dangerous protection gap.”
Mariana Katzarova’s report, titled “Nowhere is safe,” draws on a database of nearly 400 documented cases and finds the practice intensified sharply after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, alongside an exodus the report says researchers estimate at 650,000 to 900,000 people, the largest such wave in over a century. Civil society data cited in the report show average annual incidents rose roughly eightfold comparing 2014-2021 with 2022-2024.
The report documents killings including that of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, shot dead in Berlin in 2019 by a Federal Security Service operative that German courts found was acting under Russian orders, and Maxim Kuzminov, a military pilot who defected and was killed in Spain in 2024, a killing that Spanish authorities have stated was a targeted attack.
It also catalogs forced returns, financial blacklisting, and abuse of the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), including a since-deleted Red Notice against businessman Igor Pestrikov that INTERPOL’s own oversight body found predominantly political.
In absentia sentences targeting critics abroad rose from four in 2022 to 157 in 2025, the report found, and a Russian list of “terrorists and extremists” that banks in the Americas and Europe treat as a red flag has grown to 21,541 individuals. A related October 2025 terrorism case, the report notes, targeted Antiwar Committee members including former political prisoner Vladimir Kara-Murza.
A new law Russia enacted in August 2026, Federal Law No. 284-FZ, places Russians abroad convicted of a crime or found liable under “foreign agent” or similar provisions on a public list that triggers 14 categories of restrictions, including frozen assets and revoked passports, that Katzarova said render them “de facto stateless.”
The report states that Russia has ignored Katzarova’s information requests and repeatedly refused to let her visit the country throughout her mandate. It follows earlier UN criticism of Russia’s domestic crackdown on civil society, which Katzarova’s report says has been exported abroad through the same “foreign agent” and “undesirable organization” designations.
No treaty specifically targets transnational repression as its own legal category, though existing human rights conventions apply to the underlying abuses, the report states. Katzarova recommended that UN bodies support drafting one defining the practice and setting prevention and accountability duties for states, along with binding regional standards and a suspension of Russia’s INTERPOL National Central Bureau processing rights.
Any convention would still require negotiation and adoption by UN member states, with no timeline set yet, as the Human Rights Council’s 63rd session continues through October 7.
The post UN rapporteur urges adoption of a binding treaty on Russian transnational repression appeared first on JURIST - News.
Continue reading...
Note: We don't have any responsibilities about this news. Its been posted here by Feed Reader and we had no controls and checking on it. And because News posted here will be deleted automatically after 21 days, threads are closed so that no one spend time to post and discuss here. You can always check the source and discuss in their site.
Mariana Katzarova’s report, titled “Nowhere is safe,” draws on a database of nearly 400 documented cases and finds the practice intensified sharply after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, alongside an exodus the report says researchers estimate at 650,000 to 900,000 people, the largest such wave in over a century. Civil society data cited in the report show average annual incidents rose roughly eightfold comparing 2014-2021 with 2022-2024.
The report documents killings including that of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, shot dead in Berlin in 2019 by a Federal Security Service operative that German courts found was acting under Russian orders, and Maxim Kuzminov, a military pilot who defected and was killed in Spain in 2024, a killing that Spanish authorities have stated was a targeted attack.
It also catalogs forced returns, financial blacklisting, and abuse of the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), including a since-deleted Red Notice against businessman Igor Pestrikov that INTERPOL’s own oversight body found predominantly political.
In absentia sentences targeting critics abroad rose from four in 2022 to 157 in 2025, the report found, and a Russian list of “terrorists and extremists” that banks in the Americas and Europe treat as a red flag has grown to 21,541 individuals. A related October 2025 terrorism case, the report notes, targeted Antiwar Committee members including former political prisoner Vladimir Kara-Murza.
A new law Russia enacted in August 2026, Federal Law No. 284-FZ, places Russians abroad convicted of a crime or found liable under “foreign agent” or similar provisions on a public list that triggers 14 categories of restrictions, including frozen assets and revoked passports, that Katzarova said render them “de facto stateless.”
The report states that Russia has ignored Katzarova’s information requests and repeatedly refused to let her visit the country throughout her mandate. It follows earlier UN criticism of Russia’s domestic crackdown on civil society, which Katzarova’s report says has been exported abroad through the same “foreign agent” and “undesirable organization” designations.
No treaty specifically targets transnational repression as its own legal category, though existing human rights conventions apply to the underlying abuses, the report states. Katzarova recommended that UN bodies support drafting one defining the practice and setting prevention and accountability duties for states, along with binding regional standards and a suspension of Russia’s INTERPOL National Central Bureau processing rights.
Any convention would still require negotiation and adoption by UN member states, with no timeline set yet, as the Human Rights Council’s 63rd session continues through October 7.
The post UN rapporteur urges adoption of a binding treaty on Russian transnational repression appeared first on JURIST - News.
Continue reading...
Note: We don't have any responsibilities about this news. Its been posted here by Feed Reader and we had no controls and checking on it. And because News posted here will be deleted automatically after 21 days, threads are closed so that no one spend time to post and discuss here. You can always check the source and discuss in their site.