Staunton, July 25 – Russian prison officials are marking Ramadan in their own distinctive way by intensifying their longstanding discrimination against and active persecution of Muslim prisoners, according to a survey by Kavpolit.com’s Gulya Arifmezova of posts by the relatives and friends of these prisoners on the Internet. Because Islam requires fasting during the day […]
Yesterday’s liveblog can be found here. For an overview and analysis of this developing story see our latest podcast. Please help The Interpreter to continue providing this valuable information service by making a donation towards our costs. View Ukraine: April, 2014 in a larger map For links to individual updates click on the timestamps. For […]
Staunton, June 12 – As the Russian occupation authorities in Crimea continue to force out Crimean Tatars from positions of responsibility and exclude them from policy discussions, the Muslim Spiritual Directorate (MSD) there is playing a more prominent role in speaking out about Crimean Tatar concerns, especially in the area of “disappearances.” In an appeal […]
Staunton, May 30 -Putin’s repressive policies in Crimea and in Moscow have distracted attention from two other disturbing developments: the tendency of regional leaders to curry favor by going beyond what the center has required and attempts by some post-Soviet regimes to use Moscow’s actions as a guide or cover for crackdowns of their own. […]
Staunton, April 29 – Vladimir Makey, the Belarusian foreign minister, continued to distance Minsk from Moscow by saying that his country seeks a “balance” between Europe and Russia, a statement to a Prague paper that underscores the concerns of Belarus about its own fate in the wake of Moscow’s Crimean Anschluss and Minsk’s new efforts […]
Staunton, April 25 – Sometimes satire is the only vehicle available to express one’s outrage at what is going on and one’s hope that the current situation can be changed for the better. And Vadim Shtepa, one of Russia’s most prominent regionalists, has used it to imagine how what Putin is doing now might land […]
Staunton, March 20 – Xenophobia and hate crimes against members of other ethnic groups, after having declined in Russia between 2009 and 2012, have now risen to unprecedented levels, the result of what many see as the Putin regime’s backing for ethnic Russian pride, according to experts in Moscow. In yesterday’s Yezhednevny Zhurnal, Vera Alperovich says […]
Staunton, March 19 – Not surprisingly, many in Russia and the West have focused on Vladimir Putin’s comments about Crimea, Russian military journalist Arkady Babchenko says. But most important words in the Kremlin leader’s remarks are his references to a “certain fifth column” and “various kinds of national traitors.” In a blog post on Ekho […]
Staunton, March 18 – The two most senior leaders of the Crimean Tatars, Mustafa Cemilev, the former leader of the Mejlis, and Refat Chubarov, the current head of that body, say that many in their nation fear that Moscow will try to deport them from their lands again and insist that they will resist any […]
Two of the leading figures in the Russian opposition, Alexei Navalny and Boris Nemtsov, have been sentenced following their arrests while protesting the sentencing of the Bolotnaya defendants yesterday in Manezh Square Moscow. Navalny, the former mayoral candidate, anti-corruption blogger and leader of the Progress party, has been sentenced to 7 days in jail by […]
