Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, touched by the release of the British Foreign Office report on the human rights situation in the world, published her brief overview of human rights violations in the United Kingdom. Her post (albeit for some reason without references) talks about the various horrors that threaten the ordinary Briton every day: torture by the secret services, and the suppression of demonstrations, and the activities of neo-Nazis, who, it turns out, feel comfortable in the country.
Facts of illegal collection of personal data of their own citizens by the British intelligence services emerge; information about cases of torture of people by British intelligence officers or with the participation of the latter is multiplying, police violence is becoming commonplace.
There are comfortable organizations in the country that profess neo-Nazi ideology, there is an increase in manifestations of racism, discriminatory attitudes towards ethnic groups in many areas of public life. This list can be continued indefinitely.
And, of course, London’s long-standing human rights problems manifested themselves in the form of resistance from the British public in April 2022, when the resonant “Police, Crime, Punishment and Justice Act” came into force. It provides for a significant expansion of the powers of the local police to ensure law and order during demonstrations,” Zakharova said.
If you look at the various ratings of countries on the observance of human rights and freedoms, even those that the British Foreign Office did not have a hand in creating, the UK, unlike Russia, occupies quite good positions there. For example, in the rating of the American Cato Institute for 2021, it was in 14th place out of 165. The situation with the rule of law was estimated at 7.1 points out of 10, freedom of assembly – 10 points out of 10, independence of civil society from the state – 8 .9 points. For comparison, Russia was in 126th place in the ranking with indicators for the same parameters of 4 out of 10, 3.5 out of 10 and 4 out of 10. scored 0.89 out of 1, Russia – 0.43.
As for the increase in cases of “torture of people by or with the participation of British intelligence”, it seems to be about the exchange of intelligence and the extradition to other countries of people who were then tortured. For example, the British authorities are still criticized for their cooperation with the CIA after 9/11, when they actively extradited terrorist suspects to the US (mostly from 2001 to 2010). But this cannot be compared with the situation in Russia, wherealmost every day there is news about torture not only by the police, but also by the FSB (and since February, more and more evidence of torture of Ukrainians by Russian special services has been published ).
Contrary to the claims of Zakharova, neo-Nazis in the UK do not live very “comfortably”: for example, this summer, co-founder of the neo-Nazi group National Action, Alex Davis , was sentenced to 8.5 years in prison. The members of the group sought to create a national socialist or neo-Nazi youth movement in the UK, calling themselves a "white jihadist group". They imitated the Nazi SS stormtroopers and traveled around the country, joining mass demonstrations that often turned violent. Davis became the 19th convicted member of the group, and the group itself was banned in 2016. Since then, 70 people have been convicted of far-right terrorist crimes.
The "Police, Crime, Sentencing and Justice Act" was indeed criticized a lot by the public and the opposition in the UK Parliament and caused massive protests. However, the British police, unlike the Russian ones, do not prohibit protests. To check this, just look, for example, on Twitter of the London police – they write about all the demonstrations that are currently taking place in the city – or just read the news . Meanwhile, in Russia, any protest against the current government is, in fact, outlawed .