Every day, we see the hell Putin’s Russia has brought to Ukraine: bombing of civilians, forced transfer of populations, execution of detainees, torture, sexual violence, spreading terror though repeated missile attacks on civilian infrastructure… The list of the Kremlin’s atrocities in Ukraine is as endless as it is obvious.

What’s less well-known is the Kremlin’s long list of crimes back in Russia.

Putin has been driving Russia deeper into authoritarianism for years, but his renewed invasion of Ukraine last year has accelerated the process.

Russian authorities have doubled down – tripled down, quadrupled down – in their attack on political opposition, civic activism, and independent journalism. They’ve introduced broad censorship with long prison sentences for just criticizing the invasion, let alone reporting Russia’s war crimes.

In short, what we’ve been documenting is an all-out drive to eradicate public dissent in Russia.

The latest example came just yesterday, when Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office designated the Andrei Sakharov Foundation as “undesirable.”

The organization was created in 1989 by Elena Bonner, widow of the Nobel-Peace-Prize-winning dissident Andrei Sakharov, and his American supporters to safeguard and promote his legacy. Sakharov was a superstar champion of the Soviet Union’s human rights movement.

By giving the foundation its notorious “undesirable” label, the Kremlin is “ostracizing Sakharov’s legacy,” says Tanya Lokshina, my colleague and HRW’s long-time observer of Russia’s deteriorating rights situation.

The foundation is at least in good company. Authorities are also closing the Moscow Helsinki Group, the oldest Russian human rights group. Last year, the government “liquidated” Memorial, the country’s leading human rights organization, of which Sakharov himself was a founder.

And last year, the government also closed HRW’s Moscow office, which had operated in the country for three decades.

Sakharov’s powerful motto was: “peace, progress, and human rights.” Putin is bitterly opposed to all three.

(written by Lisa Maier) 

We have written several times about terrible events involving the UK’s Home Office over the past months, always thinking: it cannot possibly get worse. 

Well, we were wrong.  

British media outlets are reporting about unaccompanied asylum-seeking children vanishing from a Home-Office-run hotel in Sussex.  

Children. Disappearing. On the government’s watch. Process that. 

Out of the 600 minors that have stayed in the hotel over the past 18 months, allegedly 136 went missing and 79 are still unaccounted for. 

This could have been prevented. Warnings from NGOs, especially when the hotels’ locations were made public by the media, were ignored. 

The government’s responsibility here is twofold. The first one is about what to do, and it’s pretty simple: don’t lose vulnerable children when they are in your care.  

The second one is about what to say: government rhetoric about “dreaming” of deporting to Rwanda, sending people back to Albania, or just dehumanizing them in general is a gift to possible abusers, as they can use these as a method of control: “Want to go to the police? They will put you on a plane to Rwanda!” 

UK authorities: this is beyond imaginable. Find these children and keep them safe. 

Egypt is almost never a country where you find happy stories about human rights.

The authorities wholesale campaign of repression against critics has meant thousands unjustly detained for peaceful activism. Security agents forcibly disappear opponents and torture them.

But one tiny glimmer of light emerged from this week’s release of businessman Safwan Thabet, the owner of the largest diary company in Egypt, and his son, after more than two years of harsh detention without trial.

Egyptian National Security Agency officers had arrested them after they refused to surrender the family’s shares in the company, Juhayna Food Industries.

His case exemplified how President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s regime doesn’t just go after political opponents but also business rivals.

It’s good news they are now out, but, as we always say in these cases: they should never have spent a day in prison in the first place.

(compiled by Lisa Maier)

• Democracy is on the line in Peru (HRW) 
• Lebanon blast investigator charges ex-Prime Minister and top prosecutor (DW) 
• Liberia: investigation into logging faults state agency protecting rainforest (AP) 
• Qatar suspected of targeting critics of World Cup in global hacking operation (Le Monde, international) 

The world’s third-largest democracy and the world’s largest Muslim-majority state, Indonesia is today re-examining its history. The president has expressed regret for “gross human rights violations” in its past, but what should happen next?

Today at 14h00 CET (8am ET), Birgit Schwarz’s weekly Twitter Space audio discussion digs into this fascinating topic with a variety of experts. Tune in at that time or listen to the recording afterwards.