We invite opponents

President Dmitry Medvedev seems more interested in the development of civil society and human rights than his predecessor and prime minister. Perhaps this is due to inexperience, but in any case, on February 10, he approved the new composition of the Council for Promoting the Development of Civil Society Institutions and Human Rights. It is known that Vladimir Putin, having established the Council in 2004 on the basis of the Human Rights Commission, met with its members only a few times. Now Medvedev, who, however, for some reason waited almost a year from being elected president, talked with the permanent chairman of the Council, Ella Pamfilova, and said that there are no other such platforms “that unite people who really hold very different views.” Some zealous supporters of the regime, like the editor-in-chief of the magazine “Political Class” and the dean of the Faculty of Television at Moscow State University Vitaly Tretyakov and television journalist Vladimir Solovyov, were not included in the updated composition of the Council - they now sit in the Public Chamber. But people with slightly different views entered – the head of the Club of Regional Journalists Irina Yasina, a member of the board of the Memorial society and coordinator of the public initiative “Citizen and Army” Sergei Krivenko, as well as a number of authors of the Daily Journal: political scientist Dmitry Oreshkin, head of the Russian center “Transparency International” Elena Panfilova, editor-in-chief of the magazine “Russia in Global Affairs” Fedor Lukyanov. Meanwhile, TV journalist Vladimir Pozner lost his seat on the Council - apparently, his niche will now be filled by Svetlana Sorokina.

Let us note that human rights activists were members of the Council before – for example, the chairman of the Civil Assistance Committee, Svetlana Gannushkina. But, in her own words, quoted by Kommersant, the Council has recently been “in a state of suspended animation.” The chairman of the Memorial human rights center, Oleg Orlov, left the Council even after Putin’s memorable statement about the murder of Anna Politkovskaya (“This murder causes much more harm and damage to the current government than its publications”).