Moscow, December 18 2012 – The Russian newspaper, Vedomosti, reported today that a group of Russian human rights advocates have declared the formation of an Independent Human Rights Council. Board members of the new council include former members of the Presidential Human Rights Council Lyudmila Alexeyeva and Irina Yasina as well as current ones Cyril Kabanov and Tamara Morschakova, and other prominent human rights champions.

The Independent Human Rights Council will pursue “sensitive issues” such as public investigations and harness independent legal expertise, said its representative Natalia Pelevina. It will, for instance, issue a new report on the “Magnitsky case” based on previously unknown materials which the new council has gained access to. It will also investigate “the case of the riots on 6 May”.
In the Vedomosti piece, Pelevina also noted a fundamental difference between the Presidential Human Rights Council and the Independent Human Rights Council. While the Presidential Human Rights Council appeals to the President, she explained, the new council will appeal to the public.

Russia’s human rights situation remains disastrous, Pelevina noted, meaning that new organisations are needed, while many existing organisations are facing intensifying obstacles due to the “foreign agents” law.

The new council will also seek to expand “the Magnitsky list”, including by adding the names of deputies involved promoting laws that target protests and so-called “foreign agents”. According to Lyudmila Alexeyeva, the council’s evidence can then be submitted to the US Congress and the European Parliament. Interfax quoted Alexeyeva adding that if the information was sufficiently convincing, human rights violators could then be added to “the Magnitsky list.”

The Independent Council is not going to be a what the Kremlin might term, a “foreign agent” but will instead be funded by private donations from within Russia, promised the Council’s founders.

The Russian newspaper, Moskovsky Komsomolets, quotes Zoya Svetova, another member of The Independent Council board. Svetova believes the main purpose of the council will be to draw up lists of “officials, judges, prosecutors and investigators involved in the persecution of citizens and human rights abuses”. She said the first names likely to appear on the list are the judge from the Khamovnichesky court Victor Danilkin, who sentenced Khodorkovsky and Marina Syrova the judge who sentenced members of the Russian music band Pussy Riot.