Vladimir Putin updated the composition of the Human Rights Council. The updated list is published on the legal information portal.
Ten people were expelled from it: human rights activists Igor Kalyapin and Natalia Evdokimova, Alexander Asmolov, head of the Department of Personality Psychology at the Faculty of Psychology of Moscow State University, journalists Nikolai Svanidze, Alexander Verkhovsky, Ivan Zasursky and Ekaterina Vinokurova, retired federal judge Galina Osokina, and human rights activists Maria Bolshakova, who died in August 2021, and Andrei Babushkin, who died in May.
In addition, by Putin’s decree, Yulia Belekhova, head of the regional executive committee of the ONF in the Moscow region, Yan Vlasov, co-chair of the All-Russian Union of Patients, Olga Demicheva, president of Doctor Liza’s Fair Aid, Nikolai Ivanov, chairman of the board of the Russian Writers’ Union, Vladimir Ikonnikov, executive secretary of the PMC of Moscow Alexey Melnikov, professor of the Herzen Russian State Pedagogical University Sergey Rukshin, children's ombudsman of the Ulyanovsk region Ekaterina Smoroda, member of the presidium of the Free Donbass movement Elena Shishkina and special correspondent of Komsomolskaya Pravda Alexander Kots.
In March, several members of the HRC today expelled signed a statement in defense of free speech and called for an end to the war. “Different points of view on the situation in Ukraine and on Russian-Ukrainian relations are appropriate in society. But the last week has shown that the cost of using the army to solve existing problems is too high. Military operations on the territory of Ukraine should be stopped as soon as possible and proceed to the resolution of all contradictions between the two countries within the framework of negotiations,” the statement says.
