Russia’s Ruthless Effort to Suppress All Dissent: Daily Brief

Authorities in Russia have enacted two laws that criminalize independent war reporting and protesting the war in Ukraine, with penalties of up to 15 years in prison. The laws make it illegal to spread “fake news” about the Russian armed forces, to call for an end to their deployment and to support sanctions against Russian targets. “These new laws are part of Russia’s ruthless effort to suppress all dissent and make sure the population does not have access to any information that contradicts the Kremlin’s narrative about the invasion of Ukraine,” says HRW's Hugh Williamson. The two laws were fast-tracked through parliament on Friday March 4, with both chambers adopting them unanimously. President Putin signed them and brought them into effect the same day.

The war in Ukraine has already led to suffering on a massive scale, as the Russian army has used cluster munitions to attack cities, killed fleeing civilians in the city of Irpin, near Kyiv, and shelled the largest nuclear power plant in Europe to mention just a few examples. Karim Khan, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, has sent a team of investigators to start looking into possible war crimes. "Any side that targets, directly targets, civilians or civilian objects is committing a crime under the Rome Statute and under international humanitarian law," said Khan.

As Russian forces invading Ukraine confront stronger and more effective resistance than the Kremlin probably anticipated, the big question is: what comes next? The Russian military has a history of meeting such resistance with serious violations of the laws of war, including deliberately targeting civilians and subjecting them to indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks. Between 2015 and 2016, Russian and Syrian bombing largely devastated opposition-held parts of eastern Aleppo, the country’s largest city by population. With the residents suffering under a punishing siege as well as indiscriminate attacks with cluster munitions and barrel bombs, incendiary weapons, and high explosive bombs, opposition forces ultimately surrendered. More in this Guardian op-ed by HRW's executive director Ken Roth.

In any armed conflict, people with disabilities are among the most at risk, and Ukraine is no exception. On March 1, a shell damaged a boarding school for blind children in the city of Kharkiv. The attack happened while children were having lunch in the basement of the three-story school building says Valentina Butenko, the director of Right to Choose, a group that works with people with disabilities has worked closely with the school for years. The building withstood the blast, but the shock from the explosion shook the building and blew out all the windows. Butenko: “Glass shards flew everywhere, children fell to the floor, they were terrified." One girl was injured, and the director of the school sustained a head wound from a glass shard. All the school's children have since been evacuated. However other people with disabilities in and around Kharkiv have not been able to evacuate.

Taliban authorities have carried out far-reaching censorship and violence against Afghan media in district and provincial centers, drastically limiting critical reporting in Afghanistan. The situation facing journalists outside Kabul appears much worse than inside the capital, particularly for women. “Taliban harassment and attacks on journalists outside major urban areas have largely gone unreported, causing media outlets in outlying provinces to self-censor or close altogether,” says Fereshta Abbasi, Afghanistan researcher at HRW. “In many provinces, the Taliban have virtually eliminated reporting on a wide range of issues and have driven women journalists out of the profession.” 

And we end today's Daily Brief with France's upcoming presidential election: an opportunity for voters to make their vote count for human rights by examining the candidates’ commitment to human rights values. HRW has released a guide for voters today. "Every election, especially a presidential election, gives France’s voters the power to choose candidates who put respect for the rights and freedoms of everyone at the heart of their platform," says Bénédicte Jeannerod, HRW's France director. "With the rhetoric of intolerance and rejection of human rights principles permeating politics and the presidential campaign in France, the impact voters can have if they stand up for human rights when exercising their vote, can be more important than ever.”