{"id":11071,"date":"2015-12-07T17:43:59","date_gmt":"2015-12-07T14:43:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/?p=11071"},"modified":"2015-12-07T18:04:22","modified_gmt":"2015-12-07T15:04:22","slug":"defender-profile-stephania-koulaeva-working-in-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/news\/defender-profile-stephania-koulaeva-working-in-russia\/","title":{"rendered":"Defender profile: Stephania Koulaeva working in Russia"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\u043a\u0443\u043b\u0430\u0435\u0432\u0430\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Stephania Koulaeva, a historian by education, explains the ever-expanding scope of her human rights work. Her interest was drawn to the memorial movement in Russia: \u2018at first from a historical perspective, then from a human rights perspective<\/em>.\u2019 As a student, Stephania was involved in anti-fascist and anti-racist groups, primarily focused on the rights of the Roma minority, the most visible minority in Russia at the time. After new waves of migration began from Central Asia in the late nineties, Stephania expanded her work to issues surrounding migration. This then broadened further to include women\u2019s rights, LGBTI rights, and she eventually became involved in the protection of human rights defenders. Her organisation, Anti-Discrimination Centre Memorial (ADC Memorial) is the only organisation in Russia that combats discrimination on such a wide range of issues.<\/p>\n

Threats to civil society space in Russia<\/strong><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, shrinking space for civil society has consistently been a serious threat within Russia.<\/p>\n

\u2018In the 1990s and early 2000s, neo-nazis attacked and occasionally murdered human rights defenders working on discrimination issues. At that time that was the primary danger; the main danger we face now is political oppression by the Government.\u2019<\/p>\n

Over the past few years – particularly since Vladimir Putin\u2019s 2012 return to presidency – the Russian Government has cracked down on NGOs, often by accusing them of being \u2018foreign agents\u2019 due to their \u2018political activity\u2019. ADC Memorial was forced to choose between officially registering as a \u2018foreign agent\u2019 or closing down for submitting a report to the UN Committee against Torture in the lead up to Russia\u2019s 2012 review by that body. As the label of \u2018foreign agent\u2019 would greatly restrict the work ADC Memorial was able to carry out, it made the difficult decision of closing the organisation down in 2014. Since then, ADC Memorial has been operating without official Russian registration.<\/p>\n

The continued operation of ADC Memorial does not indicate an alleviation in the Government\u2019s harsh approach to civil society, and in November of this year, prominent NGO Memorial Human Rights Centre was targeted in the same manner:<\/p>\n

\u2018They received a letter from the prosecutor stating that they had violated the Constitution of the Russian Federation for fulfilling their work.\u2019<\/p>\n

Memorial Human Rights Centre had previously \u2018criticised Russian aggression in the Ukraine<\/em>\u2019 and \u2018disagreed with the arrest of certain civil activists<\/em>\u2019. It is most likely being threatened due to this \u2018political action\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u2018This is a very dangerous step for the Government to take. They are now criminalising human rights activity; the situation is rapidly getting worse.\u2019<\/p>\n

Support from UN mechanisms<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stephania has a positive outlook on her previous interactions with the UN, acknowledging that the UN has done their utmost to stop the criminalisation of human rights defenders.<\/p>\n

\u2018We\u2019re very grateful for all the support that we\u2019ve received from various treaty body committees that we\u2019ve worked with; they\u2019ve all recognised the work of civil society and given meaningful recommendations in the framework of their mandate.\u2019<\/p>\n

However, the political reality of the UN\u2019s influence is not always as effective. \u2018It\u2019s very difficult to oppose Russian politics, even at the level of the United Nations.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

Stephania is now looking outward to bring domestic change to Russia, as anti-discrimination laws now seem \u2018unlikely <\/em>– although pressure on the Government will continue.<\/em>\u2019 She hopes to find some success in international courts, citing potentially useful precedents at the European Court of Human Rights in cases regarding migrants and stateless people.<\/p>\n

\u2018We can\u2019t simply stay within our borders \u2013 it\u2019s impossible to tackle issues solely within Russia without also looking at related issues in neighbouring countries.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Published at : http:\/\/www.ishr.ch\/news\/defender-profile-stephania-koulaeva-working-russia#sthash.9JIM6H2J.dpuf<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Stephania Koulaeva, a historian by education, explains the ever-expanding scope of her human rights work. Her interest was drawn to the memorial movement in Russia: \u2018at first from a historical perspective, then from a human rights perspective.\u2019 As a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[281,287],"strategy_cases":[],"campaign":[],"archive":[],"filter-content":[],"regions":[],"class_list":["post-11071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-adc-memorial","tag-human-rights-defenders-en"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls_v2":{"full":"","thumbnail":"","medium":"","medium_large":"","large":"","1536x1536":"","2048x2048":"","pub-thumb":"","post-thumb":"","wcicon":"","wcsquare":"","wcsmall":"","wcstandard":"","wcbig":"","wcfixedheightsmall":"","wcfixedheightmedium":"","wcfixedheight":"","wccarouselsmall":"","wccarousel":"","wcslider":""},"post_excerpt_stackable_v2":"

  Stephania Koulaeva, a historian by education, explains the ever-expanding scope of her human rights work. Her interest was drawn to the memorial movement in Russia: \u2018at first from a historical perspective, then from a human rights perspective.\u2019 As a student, Stephania was involved in anti-fascist and anti-racist groups, primarily focused on the rights of the Roma minority, the most visible minority in Russia at the time. After new waves of migration began from Central Asia in the late nineties, Stephania expanded her work to issues surrounding migration. This then broadened further to include women\u2019s rights, LGBTI rights, and she…<\/p>\n","category_list_v2":"News<\/a>","author_info_v2":{"name":"ad666","url":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/author\/ad666\/"},"comments_num_v2":"0 comments","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11071\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11071"},{"taxonomy":"strategy_cases","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/strategy_cases?post=11071"},{"taxonomy":"campaign","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campaign?post=11071"},{"taxonomy":"archive","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/archive?post=11071"},{"taxonomy":"filter-content","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/filter-content?post=11071"},{"taxonomy":"regions","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regions?post=11071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}