{"id":51030,"date":"2013-09-06T11:31:56","date_gmt":"2013-09-06T10:31:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/?p=51030"},"modified":"2017-03-28T10:09:52","modified_gmt":"2017-03-28T09:09:52","slug":"putin-changing-tune","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/?p=51030","title":{"rendered":"Is Vladimir Putin changing his tune on human rights?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Press<\/a>

Image Gon\u00e7alo Silva\/Demotix<\/p><\/div>\n

Russian president Vladimir Putin hit the headlines around the world after an interview with the Russian First Channel and the Associated Press on 4 September. His statements on Syria were given much attention, with early reports saying it meant Russia might support military intervention.\u00a0In fact, Putin did not state that clearly, but pegged it to \u201cconclusive evidence of the use of chemical weapons\u201d by the Assad regime.<\/p>\n

Close consideration of Putin\u2019s recent public statements shows the same approach applied to other topics, including several human rights issues that Russia has been criticised about lately. Despite a noticeable change of the tone he prefers to give vague comments rather than well-articulated attitudes.<\/p>\n

For instance, his reply to criticism on the law that bans \u201chomosexual propaganda\u201d was aimed to show Putin is tolerant to representatives of LGBT community, all the while referring to them as \u201csuch people\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI work with such people; sometimes I award them with medals and orders, we have absolutely normal relations, and I see nothing special about it,\u201d said Putin in the interview without going into details on who \u201csuch people\u201d are and what kind of \u201cwork\u201d with Russia\u2019s president they are involved in.<\/p>\n

The same seemingly pleasant, but otherwise void impression was given by Putin during his meeting with a presidential Council on Development of Civil Society and Human Rights. During the meeting on 4 September Vladimir Putin put aside his macho-style image of a firm ruler.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe suddenly appeared to be a different person, a constructive and attentive politician who is open to ideas and ready to consider them,\u201d Andrey Yurov, a Russian human rights defender who is a member of the Council told Index. \u201cHe was listening carefully to suggestions about reforming of penal and judiciary systems, adjustments to internet regulations and public control of the state bodies, and reacted with comments like \u2018Oh, this is interesting\u2019, \u2018We really need to look into that\u2019 or \u2018We might need to create a working group on this\u2019. He did not say \u2018yes, we will definitely do it\u2019 to any of our suggestions, but at least he did not say a firm \u2018no, we won\u2019t do it\u2019 to anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vladimir Putin even admitted the notorious NGO \u201cforeign agents\u201d law might need to be re-assessed. The law, adopted a year ago, forced all non-governmental organisations that receive funds from abroad to register as \u201cforeign agents\u201d if they are involved in \u201cpolitical activities\u201d. The problem with the law, as many experts and civil society groups have pointed out, is its extremely broad definition of what constitutes a political activity. During the meeting with human rights defenders President Putin said it might be re-defined and narrowed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is difficult to say if it marks a reboot of an attitude of the state towards the civil society and whether any real steps are to follow. But it was a constructive conversation between a rational politician and civil society. Perhaps it has to do with the G20 summit in St.\u00a0Petersburg; Putin needs to show he is an open leader and he is in touch with civil society of his country,\u201d recons Andrey Yurov.<\/p>\n

Yury Dzibladze, the president of the Centre for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights, does not believe Putin\u2019s statement signal any change.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are no signs of real improvement of the situation with human rights and civic freedoms inside the country. Criminal cases against political opponents are on-going; inspections of NGOs in line with the \u2018foreign agents\u2019 law continue. The rhetoric might change, but it only means the authorities want to improve their image abroad, not alter the situation in Russia itself. It might be connected with the G20 summit and up-coming winter Olympics they do not want foreign politicians to boycott,\u201d said Yuri Dzhibladze.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Are the Russian leader’s recent statements just spin or a sign of real change, asks Andrei Aliaksandrau<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[581,15],"tags":[7349,14],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51030"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/92"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51030"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51030\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88339,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51030\/revisions\/88339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}