Human Rights Council under Russian President: 27 out of 40 members remaining

This week, Mikhail Fedotov, Chairman of the Presidential Council on Development of Civil Society and Human Rights received two applications from the council members who decided to quit it. Thus, 27 out of 40 initially approved members continue to be its members.

Svetlana Gannushkina, Chair of the Committee "Civil Assistance", told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that she decided to quit the above Council after Vladimir Putin had become Russian President. According to her story, she was not satisfied with the outcome of the sitting of the council held on April 28, 2012, as no orders were given there on Northern Caucasus.

This week, Ida Kuklina and Fyodor Lukyanov have left the council.

As reported by the RIA "Novosti", around the same time with Gannushkina the quitting applications were submitted by eight more members, namely: Alexander Auzan, President of the Institute of the National Project "Public Agreement"; Georgiy Djibladze, President of the Autonomous Non-Commercial Organization "Centre for Development of Democracy and Human Rights"; Tatiana Maleva, Director of the Institute of Megacity's Human Development (IMHD), established by the Government of Moscow; a political scientist and journalist Dmitry Oreshkin, a leading researcher at the Institute of Geography Russian Academy of Sciences; Emil Pain, Director of the Centre for Ethno-Political and Regional Studies; Elena Panfilova, Director of the "Transparency International-R" Anti-Corruption Researches and Initiatives; Leonid Radzikhovskiy, a columnist for the "Rossiyskaya Gazeta"; and Alexei Simonov, President of the Non-Commercial Organization "Glasnost Defence Foundation".

Irina Yasina, the head of the Regional Journalism Club, who quitted the Presidential Council back in December 2011, after the parliamentary elections, believes that the latest convocation of the council did a lot of work; and the then President Dmitry Medvedev gave a large number of orders on topical issues. "But then, there was emptiness, a sort of 'cotton wool', in which nothing happened, and everything bogged down," she said.

Mikhail Fedotov has stated on air of the "Echo Moskvy" Radio that he sees a lot of important things in the activities of the Council, including the "the last resort function" for country's residents. "Once I continue my work there, I see the sense. Because I work not for the authorities, but for the society," he said.