Human Rights in Russia weekending 3 December 2021 - with Svetlana Astrakhantseva

Simon and Sergei

This week we our guest on the podcast is Svetlana Astrakhantseva, executive director of the Moscow Helsinki Group. Svetlana Astrakhantseva is an economist, lawyer and law professor, and human rights activist. She has been working with the Moscow Helsinki Group since 2008 and has been executive director of MHG since 2016. She is co-coordinator of the Group for Assistance to the Russian-Ukrainian Human Rights Dialogue and a member of the Coordination Council of the Civic Solidarity International Platform.

The topics discussed on our podcast are: why be a human rights defender in today's Russia; what MHG does; whether there is a dialogue today between the human rights community and the authorities; is civic oversight relevant today in Russia; and the prospects for human rights in Russia.

The questions we ask Svetlana Astrakhantseva are:

1) What brought you to the Moscow Helsinki Group? Why did you become a human rights activist?

2) The mission of the MHG is to promote human rights and democracy in Russia, expose human rights violations and ensure that Russia complies with its international human rights obligations. To what extent is monitoring and pressure on the authorities possible nowadays, when the Kremlin is putting so much pressure on human rights NGOs?

3) Liudmila Alekseeva, one of the founders of the MHG, was known for her ability to conduct dialogue with representatives of the authorities (Kolokoltsev, Putin). How far is it possible now to continue dialogue in the way that Liudmila Alekseeva did?

4) A workshop on civic oversight of the police is planned for December this year in the Krasnodar region, with a face-to-face meeting planned to be held in Sochi. Do the authorities put obstacles in your way?

5) What are the prospects for human rights in Russia?

This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website or on SoundCloud, Podcasts.com, Spotify, iTunes and Anchor. The music, from Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.

Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: Simon Cosgrove and I spoke with Svetlana Astrahantseva, Executive Director of the Moscow Helsinki Group – MHG:

“It’s always been important to me to help people, ever since I first became a Young Pioneer. You always turn around and help someone who’s in trouble.”

“You don’t become a human rights activist. It’s a kind of state of mind.”

“While working in business, I kept asking myself the question: why aren’t our laws working?”

“I came to MHG as an ordinary employee, a specialist in finance. And when I came here, after getting to know people and reading books, I realized that I was finally in the place that was right for me. It was easy to get better every day around these people. It was fate that brought me to MHG.”

Simon Cosgrove adds: ‘For further information about the past week in Russia, visit our website here.’