(Berlin, February 20, 2025) – Dozens of arrests on the first anniversary of Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny’s death are just the tip of the iceberg in the Kremlin’s continued crackdown on his supporters, Human Rights Watch said today.

On February 16, 2025, Russian law enforcement officers detained at least 42 people at gatherings commemorating Navalny on the first anniversary of his death in prison. Throughout the year, the authorities have used their extensive arsenal of repressive tools to try to suppress public outcry and erase Navalny’s political legacy.

“Russia’s notoriously vague and broad anti-extremism law is used to prosecute those who call for free and fair elections, expose corruption, advocate on behalf of political prisoners, or appear to identify as Navalny supporters,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The Kremlin sees the exercise of basic human rights as a threat that must be stopped, something Navalny knew well, and for which he paid the price.”

Navalny died in a remote prison in Russia’s far north while serving a 19-year sentence on bogus politically motivated charges. The authorities threw him behind bars in 2021, as soon as he returned to Russia from Germany, where he had been treated after surviving a poisoning attempt apparently orchestrated by Russian security services. 

In September 2024, The Insider, a leading Russian investigative media outlet, alleged that his death resulted from another poisoning by government agents. Prison authorities had arbitrarily and repeatedly confined him to various punishment cells and failed to provide him with adequate medical care.

Last week, the United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Russian Federation condemned the lack of “credible investigation into his death” and said that “Alexei Navalny’s fate exposes the systematic and widespread repression against peaceful dissenters.”

In the first two days following Navalny’s death, police arbitrarily detained at least 425 people who had been honoring his memory in various regions of the country; another 106 were detained on March 1, 2024, the day of his funeral. One year later, police in major Russian cities again cordoned off local memorials to the victims of political repression, questioned those who came to lay flowers, recorded their personal data, and even arrested some of them.

Full Post @ Human Rights Watch https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/02/20/russia-year-after-navalnys-death-supporters-targeted

The bureau of Liberal International is outraged that President Donald Trump has callously prioritised the illegitimate claims of Vladimir Putin’s Russia over the long-standing Euro-Atlantic commitment to Ukraine – secure, peaceful, and whole – ahead of speculated peace negotiations.

As the war in Ukraine is on the verge of entering a new, critical phase, we find it inconceivable that the Trump administration can presume a lasting peace by minimising Ukraine’s voice and attempt to relegate Europe to a peripheral actor in any negotiations to come. President Trump’s comments after his call with President Putin this week demonstrate total disrespect for the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Ukraine. In addition, the failure to recognize who the aggressor remains a significant error in the statement of President Trump that will have far-reaching consequences.

President Trump’s recent statements and actions beg serious questions about the United States as a dependable ally and many of LI member parties will be reviewing how to address this dramatic deterioration in relations.

We welcome the unity of European nations including France, Germany, and the United Kingdom who, together with Canada, are collectively the largest source of aid to Ukraine. We urge the Trump administration to engage constructively and openly with their European counterparts and to embolden not undermine the transatlantic alliance that has served both continents so effectively for almost eight decades.

On the eve of the Munich security conference, we are convinced the threat posed by Vladimir Putin’s Russia will not diminish based on a ‘peace’ settlement in Ukraine brokered primarily by President’s Trump and Putin. That for a region riddled with Russian influence, this act will reverberate farther and embolden the ambitions of autocrats around the world.

Source:The Liberal International @ https://liberal-international.org/news-articles/trump-putin-ukraine-future/

An American was arrested in Russia last week after airport security found cannabis gummies in his luggage.

The 28-year-old man, who arrived from Istanbul, was detained at Moscow’s Vnukovo International Airport on Feb. 7, according to Russian state media, after a sniffer dog discovered the contraband.

The man — who was not named in state media reports — explained he had been prescribed the gummies by a doctor in the United States. He was taken into custody and charged with drug smuggling, with a potential prison term of five to 10 years as well as a fine of 1 million roubles, which amounts to roughly $11,000.

The Kremlin has arrested numerous Americans on cannabis possession charges in recent years, including basketball star Brittney Griner in 2022.

Griner, who was arrested for possession of a vape containing marijuana oil and sentenced to nine years in prison, was freed in a high-profile prisoner swap for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.

Another American, schoolteacher Marc Fogel, was arrested for possessing medical marijuana in 2021 and sentenced to 14 years. He was freed earlier this week, this time in exchange for a Russian cybercriminal.

The U.S. said both Griner and Fogel were wrongfully detained.

Western officials have accused Moscow of taking foreigners hostage to use as bargaining chips in prisoner swaps. At least 10 Americans remain in prison in Russia.

Story by Seb Starcevic “@ Politico https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/14/american-detained-in-russia-019107

Researchers went back to check Palestinian casualty reports from October 2023. They found a deadlier month for civilians—and children—than any other chapter of the “war on terror.”

Matthew Petti | 12.13.2024 11:57 AM

How many people in Gaza have been killed by the Israel-Hamas war? For a long time, the only source of information was the Palestinian Ministry of Health. And the accuracy of their death rolls became the subject of a morbid political debate. Is it fair to call the ministry “Hamas-run“? Did they tell the truth about the Ahli Hospital bombing? What to make of the discrepancy between identified and unidentified corpses?

It’s an ethical question not just for Israelis carrying out the war, but also for Americans, who are providing both the funding and weapons that make the war effort possible.

Airwars, a team of conflict researchers affiliated with the University of London, went back and cross-checked the casualty lists from the first 25 days of the Israeli air campaign against news reporting, social media, and other local sources. And unlike the Palestinian ministry, they differentiated between civilians and fighters, using data such as social media funeral notices to determine Hamas affiliation.

The Airwars report, released on Thursday, shows a rate of civilian slaughter “incomparable with any 21st century air campaign. It is by far the most intense, destructive, and fatal conflict for civilians that Airwars has ever documented.” The Palestinian ministry reported 8,525 wartime deaths, including 3,542 children, from October 7, 2023, to October 31, 2023. Airwars was able to verify a minimum of 5,139 civilians killed by Israeli air raids in that timeframe, including at least 1,900 children.

Most of them were not the collateral damage of combat against Hamas. Out of 606 incidents of civilian casualties studied by Airwars, only 26 overlapped with the death of a militant. And in those 26 incidents, the killing was still incredibly lopsided, with 32 militants killed in total, at a cost of 522 civilian lives.

For example, the Israeli military killed Hamas commander Ibrahim Biari on October 31, 2023, by dropping American-made 2,000-lb bunker buster bombs on the Jabalia refugee camp. The attack also killed at least 126 civilians, including 69 children, according to Airwars. “Children were carrying other injured children and running, with grey dust filling the air. Bodies were hanging on the rubble, many of them unrecognized. Some were bleeding and others were burnt,” Palestinian eyewitness Mohammad Al Aswad told CNN at the time.

Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht called the deaths in Jabalia a “tragedy of war” in a CNN interview. “About the civilians there, we’re doing everything we can to minimize. Sadly they [Hamas] are hiding themselves within the civilian population,” Hecht told CNN. “We’re going to go after every one of these terrorists who was involved in the hideous [October 7, 2023] attack.”

Hamas raided Israeli towns and villages on October 7, 2023, killing 815 civilians, including 36 children, and 380 military personnel. Its fighters shot Israelis and foreigners in their houses, bomb shelters, and music festivals at close range, returning to Gaza with 251 captives, about 96 of whom are still being held hostage. The human rights organization Amnesty International said that Hamas “flagrantly violated international law and displayed a chilling disregard for human life by carrying out cruel and brutal crimes including mass summary killings, hostage-taking, and launching indiscriminate rocket attacks into Israel.”

Full Post by Matthew Petti @ Reason https://reason.com/2024/12/13/the-war-in-gaza-is-far-worse-than-you-thought/

On October 7, 2023, Palestinian armed groups in Gaza carried out devastating attacks on southern Israel, committing numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity against civilians. Israel responded with a military offensive against Palestinian armed groups in Gaza. This offensive, which includes a massive bombing campaign and ground attacks across Israeli-occupied Gaza, continues to this day. There have been ongoing attacks on military targets, but there have also been significant amounts of unlawful airstrikes and destruction of civilian infrastructure and housing, a tight blockade of Gaza that has led to a humanitarian catastrophe and amounts to collective punishment of the civilian population, and the use of starvation as a weapon of war. Since the first days of the offensive, Israel has carried out these acts in conjunction with an evacuation system that has flagrantly failed to keep Palestinians in Gaza safe, and in fact put them in harm’s way. Nowhere in Gaza is safe. As this report will show, Israel’s actions have intentionally caused the mass and forced displacement of the majority of the civilian population of Gaza.

According to the United Nations, 1.9 million people were displaced in Gaza as of October 2024 out of a population of 2.2 million people. This report examines the Israeli authorities’ conduct which has led to this extraordinarily high level of displacement and finds these actions amount to forced displacement. Given the evidence strongly indicates that multiple acts of forced displacement were carried out with intent, it amounts to war crimes. The report further finds that the Israeli government’s acts of forced displacement are widespread and systematic. Statements by senior officials with command responsibility show that forced displacement is intentional and forms part of Israeli state policy and therefore amount to a crime against humanity. Israel’s actions appear to also meet the definition of ethnic cleansing.

Full post on Palestinian Displacement @ Human Rights Watch: https://www.hrw.org/report/2024/11/14/hopeless-starving-and-besieged/israels-forced-displacement-palestinians-gaza