RUSSIA: U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice meets human rights activists in Russia and pledges to help them build institutions

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice meets human rights activists in Russia and pledges to help them build institutions. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Russian human rights activists on Saturday (October 13) she wanted to help them build institutions to protect people from the 'arbitrary power of the state'. The meeting could irk the Kremlin, which is sensitive to Western accusations it is rolling back democratic freedoms and suspects foreign governments of trying to influence the outcome of next year's presidential election. At the U.S. ambassador's residence in Moscow, Rice told the eight human rights leaders she wanted to hear how their efforts to protect freedoms in Russia were progressing. The United States and other Western governments are concerned about democracy, human rights and civil society in Russia under President Vladimir Putin, who moved to centralise power following the more chaotic years of his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin. Putin, however, enjoys strong public support in Russia. National television, the main source of news for most Russians, has come under tighter Kremlin control and Putin's opponents now rarely have access to the airwaves. "I am quite confident that your goal is to build institutions that are indigenous to Russia -- that are Russian institutions -- but that are also respectful of what we all know to be universal values," said Rice. She said these were: "The rights of individuals to liberty and freedom, the right to worship as you please, and the right to assembly, the right to not have to deal with the arbitrary power of the state," Rice said. "These are liberties that all human beings desire. And so, every country, every people, every culture has its own expression of those institutions," she said. "How is it going and what can we do to help Russia to build strong institutions that have these universal values?" Activists included Lyudmila Alexeyeva, chair of the Moscow Helskinki Group; Tatyana Lokshina, director of the DEMOS group; Svetlana Gannushkina, chair of the civic assistance committee for refugees and Aleksandr Brod, head of the Moscow Human Rights Bureau. After the meeting Alexeyeva said she hoped officials visiting Russia would raise human rights concerns publicly as well as privately. "Unfortunately here, if during the 90s we moved towards democracy with mistakes, starting from 2000 an authoritarian regime is being built. Basically it has been built. So our political, civil and social-economic rights are affected. I told Rice that human rights activists would like Western leaders visiting Russia and meeting Russian leaders to raise human rights issues not only in private conversations but also publicly," said Alexeyeva. Also present was Vladimir Lukin, a former Russian ambassador to the United States who is Russia's state human rights ombudsman. Rice came to Moscow for a day of so-called "2+2" talks on Friday among the U.S. and Russian foreign and defence ministers about strategic issues, including U.S. plans to build a missile defence shield in parts of central Europe. Russia fiercely opposes the plan, saying it will undermine its security. She was to spend her second day in Moscow meeting the human rights activists and then holding a second session with media, civil society and business leaders.

ITN Source | October 13, 2007

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