Russia: Increasingly repressive climate turns human rights work into minefield
(World News Russia)

Since Vladimir Putin´s return to the presidency in 2012, new repressive laws and policies, and reprisals against human rights defenders and activists, have had a crippling effect on vital human rights work in the country, said Amnesty International in a new briefing Unfair Game: Persecution of Human Rights Defenders in Russia Intensifies released today. `Human rights work in present-day Russia is like navigating a minefield. Every day poses a new threat to a human rights defender; whether it´s severe beatings by `unknown´ assailants who have never been found, criminal prosecution and imprisonment for a crime that has never been committed, financial starvation through bank account freezes and...