A presentation of the report of "Human Rights Watch" on the situation with human rights in the World going on in Moscow

International human rights organization "Human Rights Watch" is carrying out a press conference and a presentation of its report on the situation with human rights in Moscow.

The section of the document devoted to Russia runs that the statement of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin made in September, 2011, about his intention to run for presidency at the election of 2012 made the observers speak of its predetermination and doubt about the perspective of political reforms which came to a head long ago.

In his essay "On the Debris of Empire. 20 years after decomposition of the USSR: hopes and lessons" Rachel Denber, Deputy Director of "Human Rights Watch" for Europe and Central Asia, remarks that "if one can learn an unconditionally encouraging lesson from the past two decades it is the importance of support of civil society during the transition period and further on".

The section of the report by Kenneth Ross "Time to change the course: from support of autocracies to human rights and freedoms. Response of the Word community to the "Arab Spring" runs that concerning the Arab peoples the West mainly pursued the policy of moderation and one of the causes of the events that happened in the countries of the Arab region is that "the Arab World enjoyed a kind of immunity in the situation of a global turn to human rights and freedoms".

As for Russia and the situation in the Arab countries, "Human Rights Watch" points out that "further adhering to the old authoritarian ally whose "subjects" are making it quite clear that that they do not want to go on living as before, Russia is risking to repeat the same mistakes on which the West has already burnt its fingers in other regions of the "Arab Spring".

In the opinion of the human rights activists, the Western governments did not hurry to take into consideration the will of the peoples in such countries as Egypt and Bahrain. "Today Russia sticks to the same position concerning Syria making no difference among the demonstrators, the Government's snipers and members of the top brass torturing people as if they were equal parties in a civil war", "Human Rights Watch" states.

Members of "Human Rights Watch" point out that it is for the first time for many years that the organization is presenting its annual report on the situation with human rights the World over in Russia. Not only the sections of the report devoted to Russia and the countries of CIS but also the materials on Middle East and Northern Africa have been specially translated into Russian for Russian mass media.