“The human rights field is being cleared out”: what happened to human rights activists in October

New composition of the PMC

Public monitoring commissions monitor compliance with human rights in places of detention. Members of the commissions can visit FSIN institutions, including colonies and pre-trial detention centers, as well as police departments, guardhouses, and psychiatric hospitals. It is an important public oversight body that can detect violations, publicize them, and bring about change.

In October, the Public Chamber approved new compositions of PMCs in 43 regions. Many human rights activists were not included in the commission.

For example, in St. Petersburg, the POC did not include former commission members Yana Teplitskaya and Ekaterina Kosarevskaya, thanks to whom it became known about the torture of those involved in the “Network” case . to the POC In the Nizhny Novgorod region, where 20 colonies are located, out of two dozen active human rights activists, only one, the head of the “Committee against Torture” Igor Kalyapin, made it , but former security officials were included. Member of the Moscow Helsinki Group Evgeniy Enikeev was not included in the Moscow commission. He visited those accused of treason, who are being held in the closed Lefortovo pre-trial detention center.

“Closed institutions strive to remain so. Officials would rather side with the security forces than support human rights activists. No one needs extra fuss about violations and attempts to defend the observance of rights,” says Enikeev.