Saturday, 7 February 2009

Rights and freedoms for Russians

The BBC reports that EU spars with Russia over rights:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7874110.stm

Why put such a negative spin on it?

Surely, human rights and fundamental freedoms as well as the rule of law for Russians must be advancing by bounds and leaps.

European Commission President José Manuel Barroso is promoting these causes in Russia and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin for Russians elsewhere.

With these heavyweights behind them Russians are indeed a chosen people.


Ralf Grahn
Posted by Ralf Grahn at 15:43
Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,

2 comments:

  1. citizen of Europe7 February 2009 at 20:46

    Russian minority populations in the Baltic states...
    It can be difficult to say what is right in this case. In the European union every person has to have full citizen rights what happens not in east Baltic states (first of all in Estonia). But can one be surprised? Many Russians was moved to the territory of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania in Soviet times in order that these states might be Russianized; and the moved Russians had superior, privileged position in the three "colonies", mostly they made not their peace with the loss of it after 1991. Today, e. g. one third of 1 333 000 inhabitants of Estonia are Russian with strong connections to Russia, former occupational power. Protection of Russian minorities in former USSR member republics (deliberately moved there) belongs to present pressure means of Russia at neighbour states that were part of Russian empire.

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  2. Ralf Grahn 8 February 2009 at 02:11

    Citizen of Europe,

    I decided to write a quick ironic comment knowing that I would not go into the complexities of human rights and fundamental freedoms for Russians inside or outside Russia.

    Russia and its European neighbours (except Belarus) are members of the pan-European Council of Europe and have signed up to the European Human Rights Convention and the European Court of Human Rights.

    Both the country reports and related political issues and the Court cases, including enforcement of judgments, are probably the best gauges of common standards we have in the public domain.

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