OHCHR Special Procedures – Press conference: Situation of human rights in the Russian Federation

Good morning, everyone, and thank you very much for joining us at this press briefing today. Today's briefing will be by Ms. Mariana Katsurova, the Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Russian Federation. The Special Rapporteur presented her latest report to the Human Rights Council yesterday, Exporting the Rule of Fear Beyond Borders: Transnational Repression by the Russian Federation. We'll begin with brief opening statements from the rapporteur and then move on to questions. Nitz Katz-Rohe, you have the floor.

Yes, good morning. And I'm a former journalist, and I want to thank those of you who woke up early to come to this press conference. It wasn't my choosing, the timing. If this is not the news about Russia, I don't know what it is. This is not just my latest report. It's the first ever country-specific report on transnational repression, and it's on the Russian Federation at the UN. So it was quite difficult to prepare it. I had to review more than 400 documented cases of transnational repression, and to come up myself with a working definition that I'm using in the report, because there is no in existence, no universal definition on what is transnational repression. Of course, Russia is not the only state that is a perpetrator of transnational repression. However, especially on physical attacks, Russia ranks third among 10 countries who have been the perpetrators of 70% of physical attacks in the past decade, which is quite serious. The European Parliament published a report, one of the parliamentarians, in July this year, and the findings there was that for Europe, Russia is among the four countries that are the top perpetrators of transnational repression in the countries of the European Union. So in front of you is a report that I very much hope will be analyzed by member states, of course, the Russian Federation to begin with. The message to the Russian Federation is clear, end the repression at home and the transnational repression across border. against any critics of the Russian government. To the other member states, I have a message of come up, develop a UN binding human rights instrument, an international convention, UN convention, which defines a definition, which defines mechanisms for accountability, for prevention, and the responsibilities of the host states of transnational repression. So I hope this is not just a distant dream, but there is a lot of work to be done by member states to initiate such a new instrument. And I'm hoping, and I called on the Human Rights Council to be on the forefront of supporting this movement. So we could see one day, and not in the distant future, this international human rights instrument with a monitoring mechanism like the other UN conventions, and binding. But in the meantime, while we don't have this convention in place, I am calling on the host states to actually develop on their national level a whole framework set up to tackle transnational repression with a strategy, with involvement of their law enforcement, prosecutors, civil society, in order to identify who are the victims. And of course, I'm talking about Russia here because that's my mandate, the Russian victims of transnational repression. to provide them with protection, to provide them from anything from visas and when they're victims of attacks, physical attacks, threat to life, to provide them with access to specialized medical care, to inform them about findings of investigations on attempted poisonings, attempted attacks on their lives. Some countries already, and you will see in the report I'm giving some positive good practice, have at least criminalized transnational repression in their domestic law. But then again, the approach is quite, from the point of view of national security, espionage, and interference. And I'm advocating that the approach of host states should be a human rights approach, because this is first and foremost a human rights issue. At the same time, the Russian transnational repression is a challenge to the sovereignty of countries, of host states around the world. It's also, I believe, a challenge to the international legal order. In fact, I must say... Russia is not only at war against Ukraine through the aggressive war that started in 2022. In a way, the Russian government is spreading their war methods of a hybrid warfare against critics of the Russian government across border. There is a law which was enacted in, I believe, in July, in, sorry, in August, 4th of August, infamous law by the Russian Federation, which, in fact, is targeting critics of the government abroad. This law introduces 14 restrictions, making Russian critics of the government, anti-war activists, human rights defenders, dissidents, stateless. although they remain citizens of the Russian Federation. Everything from freezing of assets to renewing passports, denial of consular services, to renewal even of driving license, they're deprived abroad. And they're deprived if they are already sentenced, either on administrative or criminal charges in Russia. First of all, the mechanism is clear. The Russian government first on politically motivated charges, charges and convicts anti-war voices, the human rights defenders, the journalists. And lately, it has been a lot for widespread for justifying terrorism or on grounds of extremism-related charges. And then they're tried in absentia, but then these designations and these convictions are used abroad. So this new law is targeting anybody who is charged, who is convicted on these politically motivated war censorship charges. And then they're abroad, but they are bearing the brunt of the 14 restrictions on their citizens' rights. I call it civic death. this law. And I'm calling that the Russian Federation rescinds this law as one of the very serious tools of transitional repression. The most serious, of course, from the Russian transitional repression is the threat to life. And you all know about the poisonings in the past of Litvinenko in 2006 with polonium, a radioactive isotope in London. Later in 2019, Kankoshvili, who is actually a Georgian citizen, not a citizen of Russia, a Chechen critic of the leadership in Chechnya, was shot dead in Berlin. by what the German courts defined as by Mr. Krasikov, who was an operative of the Russian secret service. And the German courts ruled that he was acting on the orders of the Russian government in this murder. He was later requested by Mr. Putin personally in this last exchange, if you remember, two years ago, where political prisoners from Russia was returned in exchange of Mr. Krasikov to begin with and some other defined as spies of the Russian authorities in other countries. But we were happy to see Vladimir Kara-Murza, Yashin, all of the political prisoners being released. And that was the last eight member states participated in this exchange. Now, other forms of transnational repression, so following these infamous murders long time ago, And since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, there has been reports from journalists and human rights defenders being targeted with suspected poisoning. Natalia Arno, who spoke here, she's a Buryatian human rights defender and the president of Free Russia Foundation. She spoke here yesterday at our side event. She reported being poisoned in Prague and in Germany during her visit in 2023. She's still suffering the consequences of this suspected poisoning. The American authorities investigated But she did not receive an answer on what exactly happened, because they claimed this is a matter of our national security. She was informally told by a military hospital who was analyzing her, doing blood tests, toxicology in the U.S., that she has been targeted by a new type of Novichok. But nothing is quite clear. At the same time, her husband also suffered, who was meeting her at the airport. She didn't know she was poisoned at the time. Two journalists, Irina Babulyan and Elena Kostyuchenko from Novaya Gazeta, and Irina Babulyan, a former Echo of Moscow journalist, in 2020, two were again reporting Suspected poisoning, Babulyan in Tbilisi, and Elena Kostyuchenko after a visit to Munich in Germany, again. I'm calling on member states, and this is just the tip of the iceberg. I could go on and on and on about physical attacks on dissidents and critics. There is one in Sweden against a blogger, a Chechen blogger, who was attacked by a hammer in the middle of the night, by a hammer attack. He survived. The Swedish authority investigated, and two operatives of the Russian secret service, a man and a woman, were convicted for this attack. And again, I could go on and on about such examples. The most important thing here is the host states to take it seriously, to identify the victims precisely as victims of transnational repression, no less, and provide them with all the necessary protection, physical, medical, access to medical care, and protection to remain in the country, which also involves the asylum procedure, the migration procedures in the countries. At the same time, now what is very widespread, and it's analyzed in my report, is the Russian Federation is using these other, more bureaucratic methods of transnational repression. I mentioned the law of 4th of August. And when this law was introduced in the Russian parliament, the chair of the Russian parliament, Mr. Volodin, said, these are enemies of the motherland, traitors, I'm sorry, traitors of the motherland, and these traitors of the motherland who left, we need to punish them. So this law was meant as a tool of punishment, as a tool of transnational repression, really. I have identified nine departments of the Russian Federal Security Service, at least nine, plus other ministries, other Russian official institutions that are involved as an absolute strategy, institutionalized program of transnational repression. And I was thinking last night in preparation of this press conference I have not identified this in my report because this is not my role. I'm a special rapporteur and we ring the bell. We analyze, we give the facts and we recommend solutions. But if a court tomorrow, international independent court, analyzes what I have analyzed, at least the 400 cases, and there are many more of transitional repression, And there is a special collection of this evidence to, of course, be presented to a court hearing. I would think that on all counts of, because it's a mathematical process, the Russian transitional repression could be qualified by an independent court as a crime against humanity because it's widespread, it's systematic, it's part of a government strategy, it's with the knowledge of the government and actually with the intent of the government and it's an attack. to the civilian population as crimes against humanity is identified, it is an attack, particularly after 2022, when the increase of incidents of transitional repression has increased, and I'll give you the exact number. For example, It, um, has risen roughly eight times from 29 cases in eight years before 2022 to 89 in the three years after, um, the full scale invasion of Ukraine, this is almost eight times eightfold. Also, there is a tremendous increase in the cases of sentencing critics and anti-war voices in absentia in Russia. So for example, from four in 2022, four cases, to 157 in 2025. And this is on the background of one of the most massive immigration on politically motivated reasons from the Russian Federation since the Soviet revolution in the beginning of the 20th century. And this is a modest, actually, estimate between 650,000 to 900,000. Some other estimates are saying over a million Russians ran through the border, many of them refusing to kill Ukrainians in the war of aggression. Many of them because they are completely opposed to the policies of war, and others who have been facing imprisonment only because they participated in the peaceful demonstrations against the war when it began, even, as you remember, holding an empty empty white pieces of paper, but the police was still detaining them in 22 because they knew what should have been written there is stop the war. Human rights defenders, even over the info has been now identified as extremist organization, entering the list of terrorists and extremists of Rosfinmonitoring, another department in Russia. that has identified on their register of terrorists and extremists 21,000, I want to be precise, over 21,000 cases, out of which over 5,000 cases at least are of people who have been sentenced, convicted on politically motivated charges. As you probably recall, the Russian LGBT movement have been designated by the Supreme Court two years ago as extremist organization. The first trials began, convictions began on charges of extremism. And then that was followed a year ago by the Supreme Court designating the non-existent separatist movement in Russia as an extremist organization and then put on the register of terrorists and extremists 172 organizations of indigenous human rights defenders of national minorities, ethnic minorities in Russia. You probably know that last December there were purges, there were detentions, at least of 17 indigenous human rights defenders all across Russia. And then two women, human rights defenders Daria Egeriva and Natalia Leungard, were detained and they're still in prison on charges of terrorism. Why? Because participation in a terrorist organization, because first, the government put their peaceful virtual Aborigen forum advocating for indigenous people's human rights, put them on this register of terrorists and extremists, and then, of course, anybody who comes across or is part of this organization, then these women were charged with participating in a terrorist organization. Can I just say, so you understand for comparison... Hamas and Hezbollah are not terrorist organizations in Russia, and their members freely meet the Russian authorities. But on the list of extremists and terrorists is OVD-Info, is Memorial, is the indigenous, 172 indigenous and national minority organizations, decolonization organizations. who are not separatists. Many of them just want a recognition, like in many other countries, of the fact that the indigenous people have been colonized for so many centuries by the Russian Federation, and they would like equal human rights. Darya Agereva and Natalia Longard was just nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. I completely support this call and please amplify this call as well because this puts sheds light on the most unprotected human rights defenders in prison in Russia. However, abroad, how the transnational repression works is another Indigenous rights organization, the Batani International Foundation, which is based in the US-led by Pavel Sulindziga, was designated undesirable organization for their participation at the UN Indigenous Peoples' Forum, where I've always been as well, and basically... for communication with my mandate as well and with other UN mechanisms. So these reprisals and intimidation to Russian human rights organizations abroad for participation in the UN fora is very concerning, and it's a form of transnational repression to silence them and to cut them out of us at the UN hearing their voices. Interpol, I haven't mentioned, the financial institutions, Interpol red notices, Russia is one of the most prolific abuser of the Interpol red notices. The Russian Interpol Bureau is initiating these Interpol searches. on red alert notices internationally, again, against all of these critics of the government. And I can tell you personally, I was involved a year ago, the Polish authorities, Polish border guards reprimanded a member of ***** Riot. who went to adopt a puppy in Poland, and she didn't know she was on a red alert notice. She lives in Lithuania on a humanitarian visa. So she was detained, and they were planning to deport her or to have a court trial to review that. Thank God, the Russian civil society lawyers, my mandate, we interfered, and of course, she was escorted safely out of Poland. But the host member states need a setup of vetting these Interpol notices. on the national level, which one are politically motivated. And also Interpol itself, their supervisory body concluded in 2024 that a significant portion of the Russian Red alert notices within Interpol actually have been on politically motivated charges and violated Interpol's, its own constitution. So there is a special recommendation to Interpol. Same with the banks, the financial institutions. What happens is, again, this list from Ross Fin Monitoring is automatically, without vetting, sent to the international banks. by WorldCheck and other databases who are servicing the international financial institutions. They're taken from the Russian government, the lists, and given to the international banks without vetting, without checking. So a lot of the Russian human rights defenders and dissidents abroad cannot open a bank account or their bank accounts are closed. because they have been sentenced for justifying terrorism back in Russia or being on the register of extremists. So I also qualified this because you're a journalist, the strategic litigation against public participation, SLAPP. These are all the lawsuits brought to silence international reporting, not just Russian reporting. Catherine Belton is a good example in Britain, who wrote a book a few years ago called "Putin's People" and how the KGB took power in Russia, something like that. Catherine Belton was bombarded by five SLAPP lawsuits, not only from individuals, and these are some of the Russian oligarchs close to the Kremlin who complained through the court, but also through a government company, Rosneft. And I qualified for the first time, actually, at the UN, certain slap when the Russian authorities' involvement is proven and direct as a form of transnational repression against the truth coming out, against the journalism reporting. I also qualify as for the first time, I qualify as transnational repression, what happens with the Chechen community and diaspora abroad, particularly women who are escaping domestic violence or forced marriage from Chechnya abroad, LGBT, former victims of torture who are escaping abroad, they are then kidnapped with the acquiescence and complicity very often of Moscow, of the federal authorities, by the Chechen authorities, backing relatives who are kidnapping them from their safety in many countries, in Europe as well, forcibly returning them back to Chechnya. And we already have cases of their disappearance and possible death in cases of honor killings, which are still practiced in Chechnya. I'll stop here and allow you to have your questions. Thank you.

Thank you. The Special Representative will now take questions. Please state your name and organization. Yes, there.

Thank you. A quick question on European countries. Are some European countries more prone to Let's say, more at risk when it comes to transnational repression and, same question, more at risk when it comes to honor legal assistance to the Russian authorities.

Question.

The question is that, do you think that is there any European countries that are more at risk when it comes to transnational repression on their soil and... more at risk when it comes to helping the Russian authorities? These might be different countries.

Through legal assistance.

Yeah.

Well, I would say immediately that the Commonwealth of Independent States, and this is the countries starting with, of course, the Russian Federation is leading there, Belarus, Central Asia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, all of them, the countries of the Caucasus as well, the members of the Commonwealth of Independent States, they don't have any vetting procedure, and they have these bilateral agreements with the Russian Federation that they're honoring without even checking who the Russian Federation is requesting for extradition. And yesterday, when I was presenting my reports to the Council, I gave the example of of Mansur Mavlaiyev. Mansur Mavlaiyev is a Chechen critic who of the government of the leadership of the Chechen Republic. He is a former torture victim who have been for 18 months in detention in Kazakhstan and repeated refusals by Kazakhstan to honor his asylum claim. He twice tried, and the last time was last week, to take his life. He tried suicide because the prospect of returning to the torture in the Chechen Republic, which actually I have separately analyzed a year ago in my torture report, the prospect of being returned under torture and to certain death if returned to the Russian authorities, they'll immediately return him to Chechnya, is so frightening to him, so devastating, that he'd rather die taking his own life. In his letter, he survived it, but until when? And Kazakhstan is threatening to return him on a Russian request. let alone his family, his brother recently, because this is another finding of my report, is how relatives and families are pressured back home and threatened and detained in order to put pressure on these traitors to the motherland that are outside Russia, another tool of transnational repression. His father and his brother were detained and his brother were tortured in Chechnya to kind of put pressure on Mansur to stop, you know, his speaking out against the Chechen authorities. This is one example, but the Commonwealth of Independent States and all these governments have actually extradition treaties that are bilateral. So not always the Russian Federation needs to go to Interpol to initiate all these. searches through the Interpol system, which, of course, is an abuse of the mutual legal cooperation between states and police cooperation in police matters. But here, they could bypass it, particularly with critics that have run for these countries. And why are they there? Because there is no visa requirement. So a lot of men who refused to fight against Ukraine actually went as far as Mongolia, but, you know, to Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Central Asia, because it was easier to escape Russia on a short notice. In terms of the rest of the, let's say, European Union countries, I don't think there are particular countries that are necessarily more at risk than others. First of all, it depends where these critics are. And in my working definition, I'm not limiting the targets of Russian transnational repression only to Russian nationals, because the practice shows this could be any critics, like Kangoshvili I mentioned, and I mentioned on purpose, he was a Georgian citizen. He wasn't a Russian national. and others, you know, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and eight judges are not Russian nationals, but they're put on international wanted list by Russia following in absentia trial in Russia against them, against the ICC prosecutor and judges. Now... any European country, European Union country. And I have given enough examples in my report. I mentioned Sweden, Germany, United Kingdom, as we know. I mean, any of them, the Czech Republic, my country, Bulgaria, actually, has been infamously producing this group of Bulgarians, and this is in the report, that were surveilling And it's proven by a UK court, Hristo Grozev, another compatriot of mine, and Roman Dobrohotov, who spoke here yesterday at our side event. He came really under severe security conditions to speak to the UN. So... that they were, this group of Bulgarians are now sentenced, they're convicted, they were acting on the orders of the Russian secret service. I mean, it depends on which forms of transnational repression. I mean, I'm mentioning Bosnia and Herzegovina in my report. They honored, they refused a request by the Russian Federation to extradite a Chechen woman who was escaping domestic violence, and they gave her asylum. So I think nobody's spared. That's the horror of transnational repression, and that's the responsibility of host states. Today, you may not be a host state of transnational repression. You may not know it because you haven't identified the victims, right? And prevention would be actually a much better response to know before it happens. And tomorrow, any of them could be targeted. So yes, I think, of course, Europe and United States, North America is on the forefront of this being targeted for transaction repression.

Hi, Kasmira Jefford from Geneva Solutions. Thank you very much for this briefing. Russia was not in the room yesterday and hasn't responded to your reports. How surprised were you, and how does that compare with your other reports, where they have, I believe, in some instances, responded? And how challenging was it for you to conduct this report? Did you receive any threats yourself, or indirectly? And since the August law, do we have an idea of the number of people who've faced restrictions under this law? Thank you.

Well, first of all, the Russian Federation never responded to my calls and my official letters to Mr. Lavrov to visit the country, to engage with the ambassador here in Geneva, or to provide information. I also asked for this report or any other. I also have been asking for access to all places of detention in Russia, including... the places where Ukrainian detainees are held in Russian prisons and the Russian political prisoners. On this report, I mean, probably it's not a coincidence, because usually the rule of the UN is you share first and foremost the draft report with the country concerned before it's issued for the rest of the member states. So this report was shared with the Russian Federation, and they haven't responded to it. But maybe it's not a coincidence that shortly after that, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs published a statement where they were calling my mandate nonlegitimate, illegitimate special procedure. They were quite dismissive in it. And They were saying, stating, we're not going to communicate with this mandate, we're not recognizing it, it's non-legitimate. And we will take, and this mandate and the resolution on which it's based, led by the European Union, is very, I think in Russian it was... outright aggressive or extremely aggressive, I'm not sure in the exact words, but something along the lines. And they were saying, but of course, we will take steps, we'll take measures to introduce peaceful ways or to restore peace in the Human Rights Council dealings with human rights, because this mandate is actually doing the opposite. So... I assume, you know, that this report angered the Russian authorities. They're not very happy with it. I think so far I have been for three years documenting what I've been calling the rule of fear as opposed to the rule of law in Russia and the escalation of this rule of fear. And suddenly now I came up with this report because I think it's very important to inform the world, to inform the United Nations member states that the Russian repression is not just contained within the borders of Russia anymore, that there is really a strategy and a program and an institutionalized attack, I would say, I'm going back to the definition of crimes against humanity, attack against the critics of the government abroad. and to punish them, the traitors of the motherland. So, look, I haven't received any official responses apart from angry statements. I've been called by the ambassador here immediately in the first year of my assuming the post in 2023 in an interview. I was a little bit... insulted because Ambassador Gatilov, speaking to the Russian television channel Russia 24, called me an active Russophobe. And then even the journalists, you know, on the Russian television said, but why is she a Russophobe? What has she done? She's Bulgarian, she speaks fluent Russian, she hasn't really made anything Russophobic. And Ambassador in Geneva, Mr. Gatilov, said, but look where she worked before. And where I worked before was the office of the United Nations, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. I was leading my last engagement. I was leading for the High Commissioner the investigation of his office into Belarus in the aftermath of the presidential elections, which is now an independent mandate, as you know. It's a group of experts on Belarus. And before that, I was advisor to the High Commissioner on countering human trafficking. I also worked at the OSC and so forth. So I think, you know, with these are Russophobic institutions, if the Russian government is calling the United Nations a Russophobic institution, and I'm an active Russophobe, Here we go. That was the kind of bits and pieces of response I've been getting to me, and of course, listening to some member states kind of having year after year these identical statements like yesterday, Belarus or even Mali or Venezuela, Cuba, they all said that my report is full of fakes, that it doesn't reflect the... fake cases. It doesn't reflect the opinion the other side of the Russian government. And also that I am acting on the orders of the Belarusian diplomat said, or maybe it was the ambassador, I'm not sure, that I'm acting and I've written this report on the orders of the European and international elites. and that the same has been done about Belarus, identifying Belarus as a perpetrator of transnational repression. In response, I had only one minute, but in this one minute yesterday, I managed to offer to all these governments and member states, first of all, to submit to my mandate in detail, in writing, all of the cases and explanation of why they think these are fake cases, unverified sources, unverified cases. And I'm very happy to review it. And I also invited them to bilateral meetings with my mandate in a very transparent and open way to tell me what do they consider not truthful, not verified in this report. I'm a former human rights investigator, and I particularly put emphasis on verifying the cases that enter my report. Unfortunately, some cases I did not include in my report because I couldn't quite verify, or on some cases there has been open court cases going on. And the attribution to the Russian authorities wasn't clear, but this is also, you know, it's like a catch-22. The Russian authorities intend, and maybe all authorities that are involved in transitional repression, but I analyzed the Russian ones. They spend a lot of time, it seems, to choose carefully the tools of transition repression that are not able to be verified or attributed. There is a low, there is a transition repression that is bureaucratic or low-key, or even with the cases of poisonings, it's very difficult if you don't have the whole states. cooperating and revealing information about what exactly happened to do attribution. So I have been really very stringent with what cases enter this report. But you were asking about response of the Russian authorities. And your second question was about the volume of people affected by the new Russian law. I'm just looking have I given any statistics? It's hard to say, thousands of people. I mean, judging by the fact that there is close to a million, up to 900,000, maybe more, Russians that fled Russia since 2022, given the machine, it's almost like a perpetuum mobile, you know, the machine of sentencing in absentia, Russian dissidents, anti-war activists. refuseniks to the war, I mean conscientious objectors, of course they're called deserters, all those men who fled. And there was some estimates at the time that close to a million men fled alone in 2022, ran through the border to avoid forced mobilization into the Russian army or any mobilization, because if you refuse... You are considered a deserter, which is, you know, a criminal offense starting from seven years imprisonment, let alone the torture, the ill treatment that you may be subjected to. By the way, my second report at a very close timing with the first report to the Human Rights Council, my second report this year is, my presentation is in New York on 26 October to the third committee of the General Assembly. And this will be the report looking into the situation with the repression. I'm trying to be a bit like to be the barometer, to keep the barometer on the repression in Russia against various groups. And there in detail I speak about conscientious objectors and So to answer your question, the volume may be quite huge, and we will see it in the future as well, because these people are then tried in absentia in Russia. So if they're tried on justifying terrorism for a post on social media in support of Ukraine, or even looking at the UN reports on the war against Ukraine of my colleagues from the Commission of Inquiry, on Ukraine, this also leads to be put on, if convicted, on this register of terrorists and extremists. So automatically you become then a victim of transnational repression because kicks in the law that if you're convicted in Russia, you're under 14 restrictions on your citizens' rights. Oh, there are questions online. I'm sorry. Yes.

We have three questions online, so we'll take them in order, Jamie, Nina, and then Emma. Jamie, go ahead, please.

Hi. Thank you very much, Ms. Khadza Ruboka, for coming to see us again. I just wanted to try to get a little bit more detail about the Belarus connection, if possible. You did mention it on a couple of occasions in your report. Could you provide a few more details about that? And then I have a follow-up after that. Thanks.

You have to remind me where I mentioned them. There are a lot of cases in my report. What do you mean the Belarus connection? I mean, Belarus has been, first of all, it's a union, union state with Russia. There is not even a physical, pretty much, border between Russia and Belarus. So Belarus is a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Belarus has been requesting from Russia, and Russia, I forgot to say in my report, I also identified Russia as enabler of other countries' transnational repression. So Russia is not only a perpetrator, it's a host state and an enabler because it responds in bilateral fashion to the request for extradition of human rights defenders, anti-war critics from other countries. particularly through, you know, these Commonwealth of Independent States bilateral agreements or the wanted list that is without vetting being honored by various states. Not only by the other states honoring the Russian requests, but by Russia honoring the requests, including of Belarus, of return of Belarusian anti-government critics and participants in the peaceful demonstrations in 2020. and ever since. So Belarus, you know, that's what I can say about Belarus. There are particular cases that could be given, and I've given as an example in my report. Another thing to tell about Belarus, about the host states of the European Union and the world, the situation with the Belarusian dissidents and anti-war sorry, anti-war anti-government critics, the peaceful demonstrators, many of them fled the country. The situation now and I think, you know, these governments are learning from each other. So Belarus was the first to close consular services and to refuse the renewing of passports of people abroad, nationals abroad. And they were, there was a demand that they should return to Belarus to renew their passports and obviously go straight to prison from the border. I'm talking about the critics of Mr. Lukashenko's government. Now, this law of 4th of August in Russia is pretty much aiming the same thing. It's introducing denial of consular services. We will see in the future, I suspect, elaboration of this law, because I see members of the Russian parliament already calling not only the ones that are sentenced in Russia, in absentia that could suffer these restrictions, but they want to also expand this law to cover the ones that are charged with administrative or criminal. And you know, a lot of people are charged in absentia with not yet convicted, you know, with discrediting the Russian army for a post on social media or the journalists for writing. It comes to mind the very famous Russian journalist, popular journalist, Gordeeva, who there is a criminal case against her on discrediting the Russian army, exactly for, thank God in absentia, for her reporting and speaking about the war against Ukraine, and many more. So I hope I answered your question on Belarus. So what I want to say is the whole states of the European Union and the world have to actually very seriously take in their hands what to do with virtually stateless Belarusian dissidents and anti-government critics, because they don't have passports. They cannot go back to renew their passports. And now the Russians are following in the same example. So we'll have a very serious issue in our countries.

Nina, please go ahead.

Yes, hi. Thanks for taking my question and for this briefing. I noticed that you, in your presentation, you mentioned that you had concerns that what Russia is doing with its transnational repression could amount to crimes against humanity. And I was wondering if you could say more about that and also why you didn't mention it in your report or in your presentation yesterday to the Council. And have you raised this with Russia, with the Russian authorities, and had any response on that claim specifically? Thank you.

Well, first of all, it's not my job, as I said, I'm not an accountability mandate. I'm a special rapporteur. My mandate is to ring the bell, to provide analysis, to provide the facts, and to provide recommendations. I'm not a court, I'm not a prosecutor. Well, it's good I'm mentioning it today because I was thinking in preparation of this press conference that actually... But I knew what I was doing, of course, beforehand. I was if you read my report, I have proven the elements of crimes against humanity, the same I have been doing with my repression reports to this Council in the past three years. As I mentioned, the elements are widespread and systematic attack to the civilian population, with the knowledge of the government or as part of a strategy of the government. So all of these elements are actually in my report, but not being a court, I'm not qualified and I'm not empowered to actually make legal qualifications. That's why I'm telling you, if an international independent court tomorrow, with the evidence being analyzed and collected in a particular way, suitable for prosecution, which, you know, is also very, you know, there is a particular way of collecting evidence for that, reviews the cases and the issue of transnational repression, Most likely, they will conclude that it qualifies as crimes against humanity, because it's widespread, it's systematic, there is an institutionalized Russian government part of a government policy and strategy on transnational repression, and it's with the knowledge of KAIAP officials and with their intent, in fact, to punish the traitors of the motherland abroad. And the volume is growing and growing. I analyzed at least 400 cases, but as one person, I cannot, of course, analyze all the thousands of cases. And by the way, they have not been identified yet. Transnational repression is a very new formulation for the international community. As I said, there is not even a unified definition. That's why I'm calling for a UN convention to to come up with this mechanism and with the definition. So I do hope, you know, this would be qualified by a court.

Thank you. And Nick, please go ahead.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you for taking the question. You mentioned that North America is a prime target for Russian transnational repression. Do you have, I mean, do you have any cases of physical acts of intimidation or violence against targets in the United States or North America? You mentioned the case of Natalia Ano, but the poisoning that she experienced apparently occurred, you think, in the Czech Republic, not in the United States. So I wonder, are you seeing any evidence of such attacks and intimidation in the United States? And I wonder if you had any engagement with U.S. authorities on this and whether they are in fact, engaging seriously with your mandate, or whether you find yourself basically held at arm's length because of the Trump administration's attitude to the United Nations? Thank you.

I'll start with the end of this question. Yes, I do engage with the US authorities. It was my initiation because I believe that United States is an extremely important country. It's a member of the Security Council, like Russia. And the United States authorities and government is actually the only ones that are speaking directly to the Russian Government and to Mr. Putin himself. So I do recognize the importance of the United Nations as a voice to the Russian authorities. So I my last engagement was in May, April, May, I went to United States. I particularly went to Washington, D.C., and I met with officials from the State Department in charge of Russia. I met with, of course, members of Congress and the civil society there. I discussed the topic of my upcoming report with them. They're quite serious about this issue, and I found quite a listening ear on the issue of transitional repression. I think, of course, for the US authorities, my feeling is that other perpetrators are kind of their focus is elsewhere with China and Iran, but they were welcoming or, you know, they weren't opposing my efforts, and at that time I was already preparing my report to the Human Rights Council. I'm going again. I'm going in October to present my second report to the General Assembly, as I mentioned, and my plan is to go again and meet the US authorities on this issue. But mind you... you, I went also because I believe that the U.S. authorities could play a crucial role in advocating with the Russian authorities on the release and this gives me sleepless nights for a long time the release of the Ukrainian civilian detainees who are not subject of exchanges of POWs, as you know. They're kept in Russian prisons. under torture, many of them really dying in these prisons. They're kept incommunicado, cut off from their families, from lawyers. So this is also-- and equally, the very ill Russian political prisoners. So my call to the U.S. authorities and my discussion was about that. Could you please, as the only government that is talking to the Russian government, please raise it, please advocate. So I do have, you know, communication as I did before, so it hasn't been interrupted. I hope it continues in a positive way. You mentioned about transnational repression attacks in the United States. Wasn't it a claim of one allegedly last week? In the United States, there was a court ruling. You can look at that. It was an organized Russian group that was actually there was a ruling by a U.S. court about their activities on U.S. soil. And I mentioned United States as Europe, as one of the targeted countries, but not exclusively, yeah, but as well targeted.

Thank you to the special rapporteur. We have to close.

Can I have a question, maybe quickly?

Yes, we have Emma, but, Fred, the UNO briefing is about to start.

Can I just answer one tiny question to honor the journalist that woke up early?

Thank you.

Thank you so much kindly.

Emma, then, please go ahead.

So really quickly, Marianna, could you comment on the Russian election? It's been framed as a vote of support for the war against Ukraine. What are your thoughts?

Well, you all saw the Russian elections, parliamentary elections. What I was very concerned was that the most anti-war candidate, Yulia Kuznetsova, and her husband Vadim, disappeared mysteriously several days ago, and it's still not quite clear what's happening after being... allegedly detained by the Russian authorities. Of course, I mean, again, this is another, how should I say, proof that the Russian people are not all supportive of the war effort and of their leader and of their government. not only those who are outside the country, the traitors to the motherland, but those who are still inside the country. And it's very important to remember that statistics and sociology in authoritarian state like Russia never works, because people are some people are quietly resisting, including the human rights defenders who continue to work without organizations, without being designated as foreign agents. inside the country. So again, I'm not hopeful that there will be a change in Russia through our means of democracy, like elections or but what I'm monitoring around elections is the human rights violations and the fact that opposition candidates and parties have been there was an attempt to silence them and not to let them participate in the elections. Thank you.

Thank you, very much, and sorry.

Thank you to the special rapporteur.

That's it, I'm done, I'm gone.

Thank you for being here.