The Copenhagen Olympic Congress should create a permanent mechanism to monitor human rights in host countries before, during and after Olympic Games. Human Rights Watch, which has submitted a proposal to the Congress, is particularly concerned about potential abuses in Russia, host for the 2014 Sochi Winter Games.

As a leading investigative journalist for Novaya Gazeta, Russia's most prominent independent newspaper, Elena Milashina exposes the truth about human rights abuses and widespread government corruption.

The chronic culture of violence in the North Caucasus shows few signs of letting up. In July, Natalia Estemirova, a leading human rights advocate in Chechnya, was kidnapped and murdered. Less than a month later, two other activists, Zarema Sadulayeva and her husband, Alik Dzhabrailov, were killed. A new report from Human Rights Watch offers little comfort to those seeking justice for these and other crimes.

Russia has ignored a series of judgments by the European Court of Human Rights on Chechnya, fueling unchecked violence in the North Caucasus. Following the recent murders of human rights defenders there, the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly will decide on September 28, 2009 whether to schedule a debate to focus on the dangerous conditions for human rights defenders in the North Caucasus.

The president of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, should drop his defamation claim against a prominent human rights defender who said Kadyrov was responsible for the murder of the human rights advocate Natalia Estemirova, Human Rights Watch said today. The Russian authorities should not allow the suit to distract from their responsibility to identify those responsible for the killing and to hold them responsible, Human Rights Watch said.

The Russian authorities should take urgent steps to ensure the safety of activists from the human rights group Memorial and investigate suspicious activities that may threaten their safety

Murat Gasayev, an ethnic Chechen accused of participation in an attack on government buildings in Ingushetia in June 2004, was released by Russian authorities without charge on August 28, 2009, after 10 months in pretrial detention.