The Battle for Human Rights in Russia

1321 Words3 Pages

Human and civil rights in Russia is an ongoing battle on many fronts. The most recent Presidential election was just about as close to a joke as an election could get. Russia has a pretty specific constitution, but it isn’t really being enforced and citizens are being denied their rights. Activists trying to exercise their constitutional rights are beaten and not given the opportunity to fight back against wrongdoings of law enforcement. In light of the upcoming Winter Olympics being held in Russia in 2014, the government found another excuse to take away and violate citizens rights. Women are secondary citizens and endure abuse constantly. Russian citizens don’t get heard in government and they have very little freedom of press to be able to spread their word. Russia in general is not a good place for human rights, but some specific places in Russia have it the worst.
Russia held elections in December of 2011 for their fourth President but there was little fairness in that, once former President Vladimir Putin declared he was running, there wasn’t much anyone could really do, he was foreshadowed to win no matter what. There we rules put into place regarding restricting independent parties from registering, any party founded in 2010 was initially not allowed to register, but in a seemingly large step forward, current President Dmitry Medvedev, relaxed the rules to allow other parties in, but not until the 2016 elections. Even with these newly relaxed rules, smaller parties will always have a difficult time gaining any traction, most of the Russian press is watched over by the government, and even without that, the larger parties have more access to the media because they have more money to back them and help them remain in power....

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