Veteran human rights advocate freed in swap says Russia is sliding back toward Stalinist times

Oleg Orlov during an interview with the Associated Press in Berli on August 8, 2024. (AP)
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Updated 11 August 2024
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Veteran human rights advocate freed in swap says Russia is sliding back toward Stalinist times

  • Thrown in prison for opposing Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Orlov was treed last week in the largest East-West prisoner swap since the Cold War
  • Just like the Soviet dissidents of his youth, the co-founder of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning rights group Memorial Orlov was forced into exile

BERLIN: A human rights activist since the 1980s, Oleg Orlov thought Russia had turned a corner when the Soviet Union collapsed and a democratically elected president became leader.
But then Vladimir Putin rose to power, crushing dissent and launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Finally, the 71-year-old Orlov was himself thrown in prison for opposing the war. Freed last week in the largest East-West prisoner swap since the Cold War, he was forced into exile — just like the Soviet dissidents of his youth.
In an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday in Berlin, Orlov decried the scale and severity of repressions under Putin, with people imprisoned for merely criticizing the authorities, something unseen since the days of dictator Josef Stalin.
And he’s vowing to continue his work to free the many political prisoners in Russia and keep their names in the spotlight.
“We’re sliding somewhere into Stalin times,” said Orlov, who at times showed signs of fatigue from a hectic schedule of media interviews in the week since his release.
He was sentenced to 2½ years in prison in February for writing an anti-war article. When he was unexpectedly moved last month from a jail in central Russia for what eventually led to the Aug. 1 prisoner swap, he was waiting to be transferred to a penal colony after losing an appeal.
The move came as a complete surprise, he told AP.
First, he was told to write a request for clemency addressed to Putin — something he said he flatly refused. Days later, he was put in a van and driven, to his astonishment, to an airport in Samara and flown to Moscow.
“To find yourself on a plane, among free people, straight from a prison — a very weird feeling,” Orlov said.
Three more days followed in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo Prison, isolated in his cell, where he wrote a complaint that he was denied access to his lawyer. Then, he was shown a document saying he had been pardoned. He was put on a plane again, this time out of Russia, with other freed dissidents, and was greeted in Germany by Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
He broke into a smile when he recalled seeing familiar faces on the bus to the airport — artist and musician Sasha Skochilenko, imprisoned for a small anti-war protest, opposition politician Andrei Pivovarov, and others.
“So when a state security operative was announcing (on the bus) that it was a swap, we already understood it perfectly well,” he said.
While held at Lefortovo, however, Orlov suspected another criminal case was being prepared against him. As for what charges the authorities could file, he said, “They would find (one) without a problem.”
“The repressive machine … has been put in motion and it runs on its own,” the veteran human rights advocate said. “The machine works to sustain itself and can only intensify the repressions, make them harsher.”
Memorial, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning rights group Orlov co-founded, says more than 760 political prisoners remain jailed in Russia. Another prominent rights group, OVD-Info, says over 1,300 are currently imprisoned in politically motivated cases.
Some of them face isolation, without access to lawyers or doctors, often on orders from authorities, Orlov said.
Opposition politicians, such as the late Alexei Navalny or the recently swapped Vladimir Kara-Murza, were held in such isolated conditions in remote penal colonies, and their health deteriorated.
“My experience was much easier than that of many others,” Orlov said. Prison officials “never exercised complete lawlessness toward me,” he added, “I wasn’t singled out from the crowd.”
Still, it’s important to support the growing number of those prosecuted on political grounds, he said, from keeping their plight in the headlines to sending them letters, and care packages, and helping their families.
In prison, “there is always this feeling of concern for your family. If you know that your family is going to be all right, it really helps to feel peace. And in prison it is the most important thing — not to despair and feel peace of mind,” Orlov said.
In the harried days since beginning his new life in exile that he never sought, Orlov has had little time to process his newfound freedom, and he is yet to reunite with his wife.
But he is determined to carry on his work with Memorial, and he says there are things advocates can still do from outside Russia, such as maintaining the database of political prisoners and coordinating assistance to those behind bars
Stopping the repressions altogether, however, will only take place when Putin’s “repressive, terrorist regime” ceases to exist, he says.


Father accused of Sara Sharif’s murder confessed to UK police, jurors told

Sara Sharif was found dead in August 2023 at her home in Woking, a town southwest of London. (File/Surrey Police)
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Father accused of Sara Sharif’s murder confessed to UK police, jurors told

  • Sharif was found dead in August 2023 at her home in Woking, after what prosecutors say was a campaign of “serious and repeated violence”

LONDON: The father of Sara Sharif, a 10-year-old girl who was found dead in her home in Britain, told police “I beat her up too much,” prosecutors said at his murder trial on Monday.
Sharif was found dead in August 2023 at her home in Woking, a town southwest of London, after what prosecutors say was a campaign of “serious and repeated violence.”
Her father Urfan Sharif, 42, his wife and Sara Sharif’s stepmother Beinash Batool, 30, and the girl’s uncle Faisal Malik, 29, are on trial at London’s Old Bailey court charged with her murder.
The trio are alternatively charged with causing or allowing the death of a child. All three deny the charges against them and blame each other for her death, prosecutors say.
Prosecutor Bill Emlyn Jones told jurors on the first day of the trial on Monday that Urfan Sharif called British police, having fled to Pakistan after Sara Sharif’s death.
“He used what you may think is an odd expression,” Emlyn Jones said. “He said: ‘I legally punished her and she died’.”
Emlyn Jones said that Urfan Sharif also told police: “I beat her up. It wasn’t my intention to kill her, but I beat her up too much.”
The prosecutor said a note in Urfan Sharif’s handwriting was also found next to his daughter’s body, which read: “I swear to God that my intention was not to kill her. But I lost it.”
Emlyn Jones told the jury that each of Urfan Sharif, Batool and Malik “played their part in the violence and mistreatment which resulted in Sara’s death.”
The three defendants all deny responsibility for any of violence and abuse and each “seeks to deflect the blame onto one or both of the others,” Emlyn Jones said.
Urfan Sharif blames his wife Batool, Emlyn Jones said, and his apparent confessions to the police were designed to “protect the true guilty party.”
The prosecutor added that Batool’s case is that Urfan Sharif was a “violent disciplinarian” and that she was scared of him, while Malik says he was unaware of any abuse or violence.
The trial is expected to run until December.


India accuses Canada of ‘deliberate’ smear campaign in latest diplomatic row

Updated 1 min 16 sec ago
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India accuses Canada of ‘deliberate’ smear campaign in latest diplomatic row

  • Last year’s murder of a Sikh separatist activist in Surrey is at the center of diplomatic row
  • India ‘reserves the right to take further steps’ after latest allegations, foreign ministry says

NEW DELHI: India said on Monday that the Canadian government was deliberately smearing New Delhi for political gain, after being told by Canada that its envoy and other diplomats in Ottawa were named ‘persons of interest’ in an investigation.

India and Canada have been under diplomatic strain since last September, after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his country was investigating “credible allegations” that agents of the Indian government were involved in the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Canadian citizen of Indian descent who was shot dead by masked gunmen in Surrey, British Columbia.

The Indian government rejected the allegation as “absurd” then, and the two countries expelled their senior diplomats in reciprocal moves. India also moved to suspend visa services for Canadian citizens, which have since been restored.

After over a year, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs said the government received diplomatic communication from Canada on Sunday “suggesting that the Indian High Commissioner and other diplomats were ‘persons of interest’”in an ongoing investigation.

“The Government of India strongly rejects these preposterous imputations and ascribes them to the political agenda of the Trudeau Government that is centered around vote bank politics,” the ministry said in a statement issued on Monday.

“This latest step follows interactions that have again witnessed assertions without any facts. This leaves little doubt that on the pretext of an investigation, there is a deliberate strategy of smearing India for political gains.”

The Canadian government “has not shared a shred of evidence” with New Delhi since their allegations last year, it added.

At the center of the Canadian investigation is Nijjar, who was an outspoken supporter of the Khalistan movement, which calls for a separate Sikh homeland in parts of India’s Punjab state.

The movement is outlawed in India and considered a national security threat by the government, which formally designated Nijjar as a terrorist.

He was shot dead last June outside a Sikh temple in Surrey, which has a significant number of Sikh residents.

Canada is home to the world’s largest Sikh community outside India — about 770,000 people, or 2 percent of its entire population.

The Indian government said Trudeau has long been hostile to India, adding that his government “has consciously provided space to violent extremists and terrorists to harass, threaten and intimidate” Indian diplomats and community leaders in Canada.

“India now reserves the right to take further steps in response to these latest efforts of the Canadian Government to concoct allegations against Indian diplomats,” the Foreign Ministry said.


Spanish PM says ‘no withdrawal’ of UN force from Lebanon

Updated 30 min 22 sec ago
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Spanish PM says ‘no withdrawal’ of UN force from Lebanon

  • Spain condemns Netanyahu’s call for the force to pull back
  • Sanchez affirmed his commitment to a UN Security Council resolution that bolstered the force’s role in 2006

MADRID: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Monday said there would be “no withdrawal” of the UN peacekeeping force from southern Lebanon after Israeli attacks and calls to leave.
Israel’s offensive against the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia has thrust the UNIFIL force deployed in Lebanon since 1978 into the spotlight.
The force, which involves about 9,500 troops from some 50 nations led by a Spanish general, has reported multiple Israeli attacks in recent days that injured five of its troops and sparked international condemnation.
On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on them to withdraw for their own safety and said their presence had “the effect of providing Hezbollah terrorists with human shields.”
Spain condemns Netanyahu’s call for the force to pull back and “there will be no withdrawal of UNIFIL,” Sanchez told a forum in Barcelona.
Sanchez affirmed his commitment to a UN Security Council resolution that bolstered the force’s role in 2006 following the last major conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, which stipulated that only the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers should be deployed in south Lebanon.
That commitment “makes more sense today than ever after seeing what is happening on the ground,” Sanchez said.
Sanchez has been one of the most strident critics of the Netanyahu government’s war in Gaza, which was sparked by last year’s unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel.
The war has drawn in Iran-backed groups from across the region including Hezbollah, with Israel last month escalating its cross-border fire with the group and launching a ground offensive in southern Lebanon.


EU sanctions Iran over ballistic missiles for Russia

Updated 14 October 2024
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EU sanctions Iran over ballistic missiles for Russia

  • European Union foreign ministers approved the sanctions on seven entities

BRUSSELS: The EU imposed sanctions on Monday on prominent Iranian officials and entities, including airlines, accused of taking part in the transfer of missiles and drones for Russia to use against Ukraine.
European Union foreign ministers approved the sanctions on seven entities, including Iran Air, and seven individuals, including deputy defense minister Seyed Hamzeh Ghalandari and senior officials of the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force, the bloc said.
Leading European powers Britain, France and Germany adopted similar sanctions last month over Iranian missile transfers to Russia, as did the United States.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen welcomed the adoption of the sanctions by the entire bloc, while adding: “More is needed.”
“The Iranian regime’s support to Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine is unacceptable and must stop,” she posted on X.
Two other Iranian airlines, Saha Airlines and Mahan Air, were hit under the EU measures, along with two procurement firms blamed for the “transfer and supply, through transnational procurement networks, of Iran-made UAVs and related components and technologies to Russia.”
The sanctions also target two companies involved in the production of propellant used to launch rockets and missiles.
Those targeted are subject to an asset freeze and banned from traveling to the European Union.
Iran rejects Western accusations it has transferred missiles to Russia for use in Ukraine.
According to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, dozens of Russian military personnel have received training in Iran on using the Fath-360 missile, which has a range of 120 kilometers (75 miles).


UN refugee chief urges states to drop border controls as displacement crises worsen

Updated 58 min 59 sec ago
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UN refugee chief urges states to drop border controls as displacement crises worsen

  • More than 123 million people displaced around the world
  • Continued air strikes set to worsen Lebanon displacement
  • Calls for drastic increase in support for Sudanese refugees

GENEVA: The head of the UN refugee agency warned on Monday that displacement crises in Lebanon and Sudan could worsen, but said tighter border measures were not the solution, calling them ineffective and sometimes unlawful.
Addressing more than 100 diplomats and ministers in Geneva at UNHCR’s annual meeting, Filippo Grandi said an unprecedented 123 million people are now displaced around the world by conflicts, persecution, poverty and climate change.
“You might then ask: what can be done? For a start, do not focus only on your borders,” he said, urging leaders instead to look at the reasons people are fleeing their homes.
“We must seek to address the root causes of displacement, and work toward solutions,” he said. “I beg you all that we continue to work — together and with humility — to seize every opportunity to find solutions for refugees.”
Without naming countries, Grandi said initiatives to outsource, externalize or even suspend asylum schemes were in breach of international law, and he offered countries help in finding fair, fast and lawful asylum schemes.
Western governments are under growing domestic pressure to get tougher on asylum seekers and Grandi has previously criticized a plan by the former British government to transfer them to Rwanda.
In the same speech he warned that in Lebanon, where more than one million people have fled their homes due to a growing conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, the situation could worsen further.
“Surely, if airstrikes continue, many more will be displaced and some will also decide to move on to other countries.”
He called for a drastic increase in support for refugees in Sudan’s civil war, saying lack of resources was already driving them across the Mediterranean Sea and even across the Channel to Britain.
“In this lethal equation, something has got to give. Otherwise, nobody should be surprised if displacement keeps growing, in numbers but also in geographic spread,” he said.
The UNHCR response to the crisis that aims to help a portion of the more than 11 million people displaced inside Sudan or in neighboring countries is less than 1/3 funded, Grandi said.
The number of displaced people around the world has more than doubled in the past decade.
Grandi, set to serve as high commissioner until Dec. 2025, said the agency’s funding for this year had recently improved due to US support but remained “well below the needs.”