Russian Rights Advocates Differ On U.S. Report

March 7, 2007 -- Russian human rights advocates are divided about a new U.S. State Department report that is critical of Moscow.

The March 6 report criticizes the government in Moscow for centralizing power and for what it calls an erosion of government accountability.

Ella Pamfilova, a human rights adviser to President Vladimir Putin, rejected the report. She says the United States "has ceased to be a trendsetter in the human rights area."

But Lyudmila Alekseyeva, head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, says the U.S. report is objective on the whole.

(Interfax)

Democracy In Russia

Demonstrators in Moscow carry a coffin with a television in it to protest government control over broadcasting (TASS file photo)

DO RUSSIANS LIKE THEIR GOVERNMENT? During a briefing at RFE/RL's Washington office on November 15, Richard Rose, director of the Center for the Study of Public Policy at the University of Aberdeen, discussed the results of 14 surveys he has conducted since 1992 on Russian public opinion about democracy and the country's development. He discussed the implications of these opinions for relations with the West and for Russia's 2008 presidential election.