Google Cloud Speech-to-Text API (Chirp) + Gemini 2.5 Flash Non-Thinking. Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:00:23Hello, my name is Mariana Tarachashnikova, and this is
00:00:26the program "Human Has the Right," which can be listened to and watched
00:00:30on Radio Free Europe and Current Time TV. Today's episode:
00:00:34выпуске.
00:00:38Exporting Fear: How Russian authorities persecute
00:00:41emigrants abroad. Sexualized violence
00:00:45has become part of the war in Ukraine. An overview
00:00:48of the new report by the UN monitoring
00:00:51group. If you attended OBZh, you won't get
00:00:54alternative civilian service. Conscription commissions have found a new reason to refuse
00:00:58alternative service.
00:01:04We will discuss this in more detail within the next hour, but first,
00:01:08let's see what else human rights activists, lawyers, and
00:01:11civil activists
00:01:13are discussing in Russia this week.
00:01:18The court sentenced a resident of Tyumen, Mikhail
00:01:21Antonovich, to eight years in a penal colony for financing
00:01:25terrorism. The accusations were based on paid reactions, specifically stars in Telegram, which
00:01:28Antonovich placed in... believes
00:01:34that these
00:01:34channels
00:01:38propagate terrorism and provide media support for terrorist
00:01:42organizations such as the Freedom of Russia Legion and the Russian
00:01:45Volunteer Corps. According to Mediazona, Antonovich placed stars
00:01:49in the channels totaling 292 rubles
00:01:52and 99 kopecks. The Memorial Human Rights Center
00:01:56recognized him as a political prisoner. Also for financing.
00:02:30help, in particular, he said that in the colony he is subjected
00:02:33to constant humiliation from the administration and cellmates,
00:02:37further quoting: the system of suppression of humiliation hits
00:02:40very hard, I'm afraid I won't endure, I'm still alive for one
00:02:44reason: the remainder of faith, that everything can still be, that
00:02:48something good will happen, I understand that this is in the realm of fantasy,
00:02:51probably my last chance not to fade out, hopes that
00:02:55the extradition of Russian political prisoners to
00:02:58EU countries will happen. Exchange. End of quote. Andrei Shabanov,
00:03:01a musician, a disabled person of the second group, suffering from severe
00:03:04diseases. For almost 2 years that he has been in a pre-trial detention center, he has not
00:03:08received medical care, and his diseases have worsened.
00:03:12On September 20, the editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta, Nobel Peace Prize laureate
00:03:16Dmitry Muratov. On CNN called on US representatives
00:03:19in negotiations with Russian authorities to raise the issue
00:03:22of Russian political prisoners to facilitate the exchange
00:03:26of prisoners between Russia and Western countries. Among them he...
00:03:30Shabanov. In critical condition in the hospital
00:03:33of the Federal Penitentiary Service for the Arkhangelsk
00:03:37region, is 58-year-old Crimean
00:03:40Tatar Lenur Khalilov, sentenced to 18 years for
00:03:43involvement in the Hizb ut-Tahrir party banned in Russia. According
00:03:47to the human rights project Aptus, they refuse
00:03:50to release him from custody, despite diagnosed liver cancer with
00:03:54metastases, chronic hepatitis C, hypertension, and
00:03:57other diseases. According to human rights activists, Khalilov
00:04:01can no longer move independently and is experiencing severe
00:04:04pain. He was detained in annexed Crimea in June
00:04:072019 along with three other Crimean
00:04:10Tatars. And in 2021,
00:04:13he was sentenced to a long term of imprisonment for involvement in the Hizb
00:04:17ut-Tahrir party. In 2003, the Supreme Court
00:04:20of Russia included this party in the list of terrorist organizations, and after the annexation
00:04:24of Crimea in 2014, Russian authorities began
00:04:27to persecute alleged supporters.
00:04:37Poisonings, murders, kidnappings of relatives, in absentia
00:04:41sentences – a total of more than 400 documented
00:04:45cases of persecution are collected in a new UN report on how
00:04:48Russia reaches its critics outside
00:04:52the country. The document is titled "Nowhere
00:04:54is Safe: Exporting Fear Beyond Borders:
00:04:58Transnational Repression."
00:05:50Elena Pushkareva came to the Russian embassy in Canada for a routine
00:05:54consular service, but she was denied, with the explanation that she was
00:05:57a threat to security. She was considered a threat for participating in a Facebook
00:06:01group and in rallies for the release of Alexei Navalny,
00:06:05and this is just one, perhaps not the most prominent, of almost
00:06:08400 stories collected in the UN report. Leaving
00:06:11Russia no longer means being safe; the system of pressure
00:06:15on dissidents, refined within the country, is now extending
00:06:19beyond its borders. At least nine departments are involved in this:
00:06:23the FSB, intelligence, the Investigative Committee, the Prosecutor's Office, and the Foreign Ministry.
00:06:27Cases of persecution of Russians abroad have, on average, increased
00:06:31eightfold since the start of the full-scale war. In terms of attacks
00:06:34on its critics abroad, Russia is among the top three
00:06:38states, accounting for more than 70% of such attacks.
00:06:53In the report, stories are told about the murder of pilot Maxim Kuzminov, who defected to
00:06:56Ukraine and was killed in Spain in 2024. About signs
00:07:00of poisoning of journalists Elena Kostyuchenko in Munich and Irina
00:07:03Babalayan in Tbilisi, as well as human rights activist Natalya
00:07:06Arno. About the attack in Sweden on blogger Tumso Abdurakhmanov,
00:07:10about how last year in... the plan to assassinate
00:07:14human rights activist Vladimir Osechkin was uncovered. More and more often, Russia
00:07:17acts through proxies, because its diplomats
00:07:21and intelligence officers have been expelled from many countries. Instead of them, recruited
00:07:25activists, criminal groups, businessmen, and people within
00:07:28diasporas work. In Britain, for example, a network of Bulgarian
00:07:32citizens working for Russian intelligence was uncovered, who
00:07:35spied on Bellingcat journalist Hristo Grozev
00:07:38and prepared an assassination attempt on him. Those whom they cannot reach physically
00:07:42are tried in absentia; in 2022, there were four such sentences,
00:07:45in 2025 already 157. They are tried
00:07:49for anti-war posts, journalism, opposition work. Producer
00:07:53Alexander Rodnyansky received 8.5 years for
00:07:56publications about deceased civilians in Ukraine, Navalny's associate
00:07:59Nina Volokhonskaya 5.5 years, and activist
00:08:03Alexandra Pugach was sentenced for speaking at a rally in Georgia.
00:08:07After the sentence, a person risks being detained in any country
00:08:11that cooperates with Moscow. Since August
00:08:132026, a law has been in effect in Russia that seriously restricts the rights
00:08:17of exiled government critics.
00:08:20They can first be convicted in absentia under articles ranging from discrediting
00:08:24the army to financing terrorism, and then their
00:08:27accounts and property will be frozen, passports denied, and access to
00:08:31public services cut off. Obligations of a citizen, however, remain. And
00:08:35the UN calls this civil death. Through the common CIS
00:08:38wanted system, Russia achieves arrests and extradition.
00:08:42The political motivation in such cases is not checked by anyone; critics of the authorities
00:08:46are sent back to Russia directly into the hands of the investigation. Thus, anti-war
00:08:50activist Alexei Rashkov was handed over to Russia from Kyrgyzstan; he
00:08:53says he was tortured. Last year, in a case concerning anti-war
00:08:57statements about the arson of a military enlistment office, he was sentenced to
00:09:0016 years. Georgy Pirogov disappeared in Uzbekistan and
00:09:04ended up in a Moscow pre-trial detention center, and then received 23 years for
00:09:07treason. Deserter Semyon Bozhukov was tortured by Russian security forces
00:09:11directly on the territory of Kazakhstan. In a similar way,
00:09:14Russia uses Interpol, reporting on the search for terrorists and
00:09:18extremists. Approximately half of the Russian requests that
00:09:21Interpol considered in 2024, it
00:09:25recognized as contradicting its own charter.
00:09:28Political emigrants from Russia abroad have their accounts closed, because
00:09:31the Russian list of terrorists and extremists, which includes
00:09:35more than 21,000 people, automatically gets into databases
00:09:39that banks use to check clients, and the European bank
00:09:42simply repeats the decisions of Russian security forces. Russian authorities, meanwhile,
00:09:46track emigrants, hack their email,
00:09:49phones, and send journalists messages with their home
00:09:52addresses and routes. Their relatives remaining in Russia
00:09:56are threatened with criminal cases and mobilization. In
00:09:59Chechnya, relatives of those who have left are kidnapped
00:10:02and tortured.
00:10:07This is the "Human Has the Right" program. My name is Mariana Torocheshnikova. On the
00:10:11line with us.
00:10:25about the fact that the repressive practices of the Russian authorities
00:10:29have already crossed the borders of Russia, and
00:10:32now it has become a system, what is called in your
00:10:35report transnational
00:10:39repression of those people who criticize the actions
00:10:42of the Russian authorities, not only Vladimir Putin,
00:10:45by the way. Please tell us,
00:10:49from your point of view, how does this system work, why
00:10:52did you see it as a systemic one?
00:11:55that it is the rule of fear, not the rule of
00:11:58law, and this rule of
00:12:01fear has already crossed borders.
00:12:05You know, on August 4th,
00:12:08another law was adopted and
00:12:11signed by the President of Russia, and it was precisely
00:12:14aimed at those Russians who are abroad,
00:12:18who are already convicted under
00:12:21administrative or criminal cases, but who are located...
00:13:25State Duma Speaker, Mr. Volodin,
00:13:28called these people "traitors
00:13:31to the homeland," and these traitors to the homeland must be
00:13:33punished. It's not enough that he used absolutely
00:13:37the lexicon of Soviet repressions and even Stalinist
00:13:40repressions, yes, but all these Russians, and
00:13:44by different counts, almost 1 million, who
00:13:48left for various reasons, especially since
00:13:50the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
00:13:54A huge number of them were
00:13:58and continue to be every day persecuted,
00:14:02convicted in absentia
00:14:04precisely under these new articles
00:14:07of legislation for discrediting the army, for fakes about
00:14:11the army. The Russian government has developed
00:14:14a new strategy, where more and more Russians
00:14:17fall under transnational repressions, not only with this
00:14:21law of August 4th on civil death.
00:14:55in Russia, and this bureau reports to
00:14:58the entire Interpol system that specific people who
00:15:02are wanted for terrorism and extremism
00:15:05must be arrested and returned to Russia.
00:15:09Of course, it's fascinating that Interpol
00:15:12itself
00:15:15still allows such red
00:15:19flags, that there is a system
00:15:21of checking which of these cases...
00:15:37internal Interpol review
00:15:41found that approximately half of the cases
00:15:45related to the Russian Federation and
00:15:48reviewed by the Interpol oversight body in
00:15:512024 were deemed inconsistent
00:15:54with the organization's charter. This means that
00:15:58the Interpol oversight body itself proved
00:16:02that Interpol itself, in half of the cases, allowed
00:16:05these notices. This means that these people were on a very serious
00:16:08Interpol wanted list. In my report, I also give
00:16:12recommendations to Interpol. In addition
00:16:15to this, there is a unified system
00:16:18for CIS countries, CIS members,
00:16:21this is a wanted list
00:16:23that includes names from different countries.
00:16:27This list for this wanted list is not
00:16:29checked at all, so there isn't even a system,
00:16:33which, thankfully, exists. it follows, first, by
00:17:07passport, very often, because they are citizens of Russia, and against
00:17:10Russia, sanctions have been imposed. Secondly, they can be persecuted because
00:17:14they are on the Interpol wanted list or the CIS wanted list.
00:17:18They have problems related
00:17:22to the possibility of opening accounts, movement, and so on.
00:17:25This understanding of this, in your
00:17:28opinion, does it exist somewhere
00:17:31in the high international offices?
00:17:34Are they going to take any action on this?
00:18:08started the process of adopting and establishing
00:18:11an international UN convention, a human rights
00:18:14convention, which will
00:18:17consider, on the one hand, there will be a unified
00:18:21definition of what transnational repression is, who
00:18:25are the victims of these repressions.
00:18:27Then it will be spelled out what obligations these
00:18:31countries have, because no one is insured, today you
00:18:34may not have victims of transnational repression.
00:18:37but tomorrow they will be, or maybe they are, and you don't even know, you
00:18:41harass them, as you said, as - as
00:18:45falling under sanctions, and so on,
00:18:48therefore here - I am in Geneva
00:18:52- and this week - next week I
00:18:56initiated discussions with different countries,
00:19:00different groups, not only
00:19:02the European Union, but also other regional groups - with
00:19:06African countries.
00:20:44Conscripts in Russia began to be denied alternative civilian
00:20:47service due to lessons on the basics of life safety
00:20:51and the basics of security and homeland defense. According
00:20:55to the logic of the judges, if a former school student studied the topic of conscription into
00:20:58military service, it means he has no
00:21:01convictions against serving in the army. This was reported by the head
00:21:05of the legal department of the Movement of Conscientious Objectors, Artyom
00:21:08Klyga, citing court decisions in various regions of Russia. So
00:21:11legally avoiding conscription into the Russian army is becoming increasingly
00:21:15difficult, and the practice of forcing conscripts
00:21:18into contract service is not slowing
00:21:22down.
00:21:26Say, let her do it, this is
00:21:28there.
00:21:31This is an OBZh lesson in one of the Russian schools, children are taught to assemble and disassemble
00:21:35a Kalashnikov assault rifle, there are even competitions to see who can assemble the weapon
00:21:39faster. Now these lessons have become a reason to
00:21:43deny young men of conscription age alternative
00:21:46civilian service, the courts write like this: excellent grades in the basics.
00:22:01Conscripts in Khabarovsk, Perm, Arkhangelsk,
00:22:05Belgorod, Novgorod, Krasnodar, and Altai
00:22:08regions received similar refusals, according to the head of
00:22:11the legal department of the Movement
00:22:12of Conscientious Objectors, Artyom
00:22:15And once in the army, conscripts often face
00:22:18pressure from commanders.
00:22:38He and other soldiers were forced to sign contracts under threat. They were subjected to intense
00:22:42psychological pressure. According to the boys, either you sign the contract or
00:22:45you leave. years,
00:22:48and from there you still go to the SVO, only immediately to assault troops,
00:22:52have pity on mothers, my younger brother is 19 years old,
00:22:55he was called up for срочная service, at the assembly point he was offered to sign
00:22:59a document, explaining that it was not a contract, it was just a report that
00:23:03allegedly would help him to undergo срочная service on Sakhalin, near his
00:23:07home, while they said something like the following: you have parents,
00:23:10pensioners, it's better for you to stay near your family, this is not a contract, this is a guarantee
00:23:13to stay on Sakhalin, just after a year of срочная service, you will need to work for another
00:23:16year. salary, you'll want to go home,
00:23:20blah blah blah. In general, believing these words, he signed.
00:23:23At the same time, he signed only one sheet in a single copy.
00:23:27But the very next day he realized that, probably, it could have been
00:23:30about a contract. Document manipulation is a frequent
00:23:34practice, so 28-year-old conscript Emil Zhenizhbekov from
00:23:37Krasnoyarsk has been suing the Ministry of Defense for more than a year over
00:23:41a fake contract. Zhenish Bekov signed the document, thinking it was
00:23:44an application to transfer to the position of driver. His срочная service
00:23:48ended back in April, but Zhenizhbekov is not being
00:23:51allowed home. On September 10, he reported that he is in a military unit
00:23:54in the city of Yurga, Kemerovo region, from where they promise to send him
00:23:58via Rostov to the war in Ukraine immediately on a combat
00:24:01mission, as a malicious violator of discipline.
00:24:05The shell
00:24:07was thrown, they took me to the cell for 2 days,
00:24:11summoned me to the headquarters, offered to write a resignation report,
00:24:14saying that it was the only way out in a situation where the law doesn't
00:24:18work. On April 2, I wrote a report,
00:24:21on May 12, they held an attestation commission,
00:24:24promised to let me go within a month and a half. Three
00:24:28months passed, I received a reply from Lieutenant
00:24:31Permikov that the documents for my dismissal were refused
00:24:35to be signed by Major General of the Central Military District,
00:24:38Kudryashkin Alexey Viktorovich, allegedly
00:24:41saying that serving and fighting under a fake contract
00:24:45should be an honor for me. I demand
00:24:48to be released, my service term has expired.
00:24:51Probably, in part due to such stories, the number of requests for
00:24:54alternative civilian service is growing. Conscripts who
00:24:58share on social media how they managed to get ACS
00:25:01are followed by thousands of people. I'm that guy
00:25:04who is doing alternative civilian service in the city of Smolensk. And
00:25:08the most amazing thing is how I even got here. In the last day, an incredible
00:25:11number of people subscribed to me, 4,000 people,
00:25:15for me, this is just a cosmic number. And a lot of questions
00:25:19poured in. How did I get to ACS, how do I submit an application for the military enlistment office to accept
00:25:23it, and so on. Well, I've been home for literally
00:25:26the last week and I'm moving. I found
00:25:30out about this city myself just a month ago. This
00:25:34is the city of Balakovo, Saratov region. And I will be working
00:25:37in a retirement home, an internat for the elderly and disabled
00:25:40as an orderly. This is for the next year
00:25:43and 9 months. I'm ready for this, I'm coming, I'm coming to you, so
00:25:47welcome guests.
00:25:53This is the "Human Has the Right" program. My name is Mariana Torocheshnikova. About
00:25:57being forced to participate in the war, about how it happened that
00:26:00studying the basics of safety in school.
00:26:40parents or students that they have the right, for example, to replace this
00:26:44part with a theoretical one, because of conscientious objections, for example, or
00:26:48for health reasons, because they cannot march
00:26:51or, I don't know, run in a chemical protection suit at these military
00:26:54trainings, or there take a machine gun, even if it's
00:26:57a dummy, disassemble it, assemble it, and so on. This is not discussed, many students ultimately
00:27:01end up... those who don't like it, parents who also don't
00:27:05like it, they study, get some grades, well, fives,
00:27:09most often, because it's still an easy subject, and then this
00:27:12becomes an obstacle, that is, people apply for alternative service,
00:27:15it's logical that their convictions can be revealed, the law doesn't really
00:27:18require any specific event to happen in life,
00:27:22it's enough that convictions change throughout life, and yes, you could have gone
00:27:26to OBZh, but after 2-3 years, you applied for ACS,
00:27:29described what convictions you have, but now the draft
00:27:33commissions started saying that since you went to OBZh, got fives there,
00:27:36assembled and disassembled a Kalashnikov dummy, did something else
00:27:40there, then that's it, you have no convictions, that is, everything is evaluated
00:27:44from the perspective of how a person should literally be born with their convictions,
00:27:47not make any mistakes, although the state leads them to them, given the militarization in
00:27:51schools, if he didn't make any mistakes, then he's ideal, and if
00:27:55he went to OBZh, the scoundrel, then no
00:27:58alternative service for him... we won't change anything,
00:28:01let him serve with everyone on equal terms, so yes, this
00:28:05is a new practice, across different regions, it is developing roughly
00:28:08the same way, that is, it's also, you know, not to refer to
00:28:11some anomaly, like it's like that in Moscow, or it's like that in Kuban,
00:28:15or it's like that in Chechnya, it's an all-Russian, in essence,
00:28:18practice, which is recognized by absolutely different, completely unrelated to each other
00:28:22courts. Tell me, what then can a school student
00:28:25and their parents do, if, as you say, many didn't even
00:28:29know and don't know that
00:28:32one can refuse this subject, and how to
00:28:35refuse OBZh and not become a truant?
00:28:39You can refuse, you just need to know, first, your
00:28:42right to refuse, it exists, nothing is done for it,
00:28:45parents are not fined, no one is
00:28:49imprisoned, it's enough to ask, well, that is, you can't just
00:28:52refuse the subject, but you can ask to replace this initial military
00:28:56training with theoretical classes, precisely by referring to
00:28:59conscientious objections, that well, you have there disassembly. assembly
00:29:02of a machine gun, you have a laser shooting range, you have drones,
00:29:06uh, for my child, due to his convictions,
00:29:09this is not suitable at all, replace it with theoretical classes
00:29:13there from a textbook, so that without practice, so that - this conflict
00:29:17of conscience does not arise, and we have the right to freedom
00:29:20of conscience, but it is still theoretically protected by the constitution, parents
00:29:24persist, stand their ground, and schools, as it were, change in
00:29:27this part - the individual learning plan,
00:29:31replace all this with... theory, this is extremely important, and confirmation that,
00:29:35for example, the block on initial military training was replaced with
00:29:38theoretical classes, is extremely important, to get confirmation from the school directly on paper,
00:29:42or there, if the paper, there the school doesn't issue anything, then at least
00:29:46save the application that was submitted, so that later
00:29:49it can be used, among other things, to apply for ACS,
00:29:52so that there is no argument that the person attended
00:29:56OBZh classes and did not declare any of their convictions. And how
00:30:00is the situation in Russia generally at the present time? It was with
00:30:03the replacement of military service with alternative
00:30:06civilian service, if conscription events are now ongoing
00:30:10all year round, and if previously there were certain deadlines
00:30:14to submit an application for civilian service,
00:30:17now that's gone. What's happening now in general, and
00:30:21how many people actually achieve the replacement of military
00:30:25service with alternative civilian service? From the point of view
00:30:28of year-round conscription, it didn't significantly affect the right
00:30:32to alternative service itself; there are quite a lot of problems associated with it precisely because of
00:30:36the subjective perception by conscription commissions, and indeed, of the entire
00:30:39reality. There are no concrete criteria; the conscription commission
00:30:42subjectively evaluates all the conscript's arguments, so
00:30:46subjectively, again, because of the war, because of militarism, because
00:30:49of this whole military approach in everything, uh,
00:30:53this subjective approach has shifted in a negative direction. We now have, according to
00:30:57official data, well, if you look at them that way,