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Russian authorities should promptly and effectively investigate reports of excessive use of force against protesters and arbitrary detentions during and following a protest on May 6, 2012, Human Rights Watch said today. The authorities should also investigate the allegedly arbitrary detention of hundreds of activists demonstrating peacefully on May 7, Human Rights Watch said.
In the late afternoon of May 6, tens of thousands of protesters marched in central Moscow and began to assemble for a rally sanctioned by the Moscow authorities at Bolotnaya Square, near the Kremlin. After a bottleneck created by police security held up thousands of the protesters on the way to the main rally site, several leaders of the opposition called a sit-down strike and a handful of protesters tried to break through a police line, in some cases using violence. Police responded with force, including using rubber truncheons, detaining hundreds of people, including peaceful protesters as well as those who were acting aggressively.
"Though some protesters apparently disobeyed police orders and even attacked police officers, we received many credible reports of police detaining peaceful protesters along with those who violated the law," said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "We are also concerned about allegations of police brutality, including beatings and causing unnecessary pain and suffering."
The May 6 protest was the first in which violence erupted since public protests began on a periodic basis in December 2011.
Human Rights Watch is concerned that the Russian authorities are using the disorderly behavior of some of the demonstrators on May 6 as a pretext to further curb freedom of assembly. According to the European Court of Human Rights, an unauthorized peaceful protest does not justify an infringement on freedom of assembly, but requires a certain degree of tolerance on the part of the authorities. The government also has a duty to investigate and remedy violations of those obligations.
The right of peaceful assembly is guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) as well as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Russia is a party, as well as by the Russian Constitution. As the European Court of Human Rights has made clear, the freedom to take part in a peaceful assembly is of such importance that a person cannot be subjected to a sanction - even one at the lower end of the scale of disciplinary penalties - for participation in a demonstration that has not been prohibited, so long as this person does not himself commit any reprehensible act on such an occasion.
"Contentious protests happen all over the world and human rights law imposes a duty on the state to protect the public from violence," Williamson said. "However, the authorities should not use violent actions by some protesters to attack human rights, including the rights to free assembly and free expression."
Accounts from witnesses of the events on May 6 and 7 follow.
The May 6 Protest
Media reports variously estimate that in the late afternoon of May 6 between 20,000 and 60,000 demonstrators marched from the south of the city center north along Bolshaya Yakimanka Street in central Moscow. The marchers included opposition activists, as well as high school students, elderly people, and others. The protesters headed toward Bolotnaya Square, just across the river from the Kremlin, to the site of a planned rally by opposition political parties and civil society activists protesting the inauguration of Vladimir Putin as president. The protest was peaceful for the first hour.
However, according to media reports and video footage, a bottleneck was created between metal detectors manned by police at the entrance to Bolotnaya Square and the police cordons blocking the road toward the Kremlin. While the demonstrators at the head of the processions successfully made it to the square, a column of thousands of demonstrators was held up. People were eventually backed up several hundred meters on Bolshaya Polyanka Street, leading from Bolshaya Yakimanka to Bolotnaya Square, waiting to reach the rally site.
Apparently frustrated at the delay, several recognized leaders of the protest movement, including Sergei Udaltsov, Alexei Navalny and Ilia Yashin, declared a "sit-down political strike." They sat on the ground in front of the police line and called on others to join them. According to media reports, Udaltsov voiced their demands as "one hour of federal television time, suspension of Putin's inauguration, and re-elections." The strikers started singing a famous revolutionary song and made calls and sent messages to others, including on Twitter, to bring food, water, and tents and to stay put.
Based on video footage examined by Human Rights Watch, shortly after 6 p.m., a group of young aggressive protesters tried to break through the police cordon. Riot police officers used rubber batons against them and detained several protesters. Some succeeded in breaking through the police cordon. One threw an improvised incendiary device in a bottle at police, but the flames instead set the clothes of another demonstrator on fire. Police officers and other protesters helped put out the flames. After the homemade incendiary device was thrown, protracted and violent confrontations between riot police and aggressive protesters ensued.
Udaltsov and Navalny managed to make their way to Bolotnaya Square soon after the police cordon had been breached. Udaltsov went to the podium and, using two loudspeakers, called on people to stay in the square indefinitely. Police dragged him off the stage and detained him together with Navalny. Both spent the night in custody, were tried the next day for "disobeying police orders," and sentenced to pay 1,000-ruble [approximately US$30] fines.
During the next two hours, police detained large numbers of protesters. Human Rights Watch researchers witnessed some of the detentions. The Human Rights Watch researchers also interviewed numerous witnesses to detentions, all of whom asserted that they saw people who did not engaged in violence detained along with those who violated public order. The witnesses consistently said the police had used force, irrespective of whether detainees were presenting a threat to police or others.
Accounts of Police Violence
Several activists interviewed by Human Rights Watch, including two who were themselves detained, said that riot police in full gear dragged protesters by their arms and feet, twisted their arms, and stomped on people who had fallen to the ground. Witnesses also reported that some people were bleeding from being hit or dragged by police along the asphalt and that at least three demonstrators had to be hospitalized after being released from police precincts later in the evening.
One witness, Sergei Davidis, a human rights lawyer, and an organizer of the event, said:
People were being arrested indiscriminately all over the place. The use of force was not targeted just against those manifesting aggression. One [peaceful] woman, for example, was shocked with an electroshock weapon. I saw many people beaten by police. They used batons a lot, including against those people who were standing there peacefully and just could not get out of the crowd.
Riot police officers hit Alexei Pomerantsev, a journalist from the prominent independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, with batons and dragged him to join other detainees held in a reinforced vehicle. Novaya Gazeta reported that Pomerantsev was released quickly, once he was able to show his media identification to a police officer in charge of the vehicle.
Dmitry Oreshkin - a prominent policy social scientist and member of Russia's Presidential Civil Society and Human Rights Council, a group of prominent civil society activists and experts recruited by the president to advise him on human rights issues - told Human Rights Watch what he saw. He said that when the bottleneck created by police was causing demonstrators around him to be pushed together and the crowd was growing increasingly agitated, he decided to intervene with the police, using his official credentials.
Oreshkin said that police roughed him up as he tried to speak to them. "I started asking them to let people proceed to the square, to give them more space, to give them more space by moving the police chain some 10 meters back, but they ignored me," Oreshkin said. "I tried to get through the chain waving my ID to speak to some officials in command, but they would not let me. Several officers stomped on my feet. I received a punch in my stomach. They did something to my hand - it started bleeding... Finally, some [more senior official] came up and ordered to let me though."
A member of the Presidential Civil Society and Human Rights Council, Elena Panfilova, who is the head of the Russia Chapter for Transparency International, was at the protest and witnessed many of the detentions. She emphasized to Human Rights Watch that she was particularly distressed by the roughness of detentions, in which police twisted people's arms and dragged them on the ground. She indicated that according to her observations, it was specifically riot police - as opposed to regular police officers - who engaged in excessive force. Panfilova also believed that the authorities "generally created a situation in which many perfectly orderly peaceful citizens, some of them with their whole families, were trapped in the crowd amid violence without any escape options."
"Even when public protests become disorderly and police officials face violence from some of the demonstrators, it does not justify the use of excessive and indiscriminate force and arbitrary detentions," Williamson said.
Witnesses in other locations, including farther up Bolshaya Yakimanka Street before and after the outbreak of violence, stated that protesters had become increasingly nervous as they did not know what was happening, and were being squeezed from all sides by fellow demonstrators and police.
After several minutes of general chaos on Bolotnaya Square following the announcement of the sit-down strike on the other side of the police cordon, some people chose to leave the square and others headed back to the entrance of the square to find out what was going on. At first the police would not let people proceed in that direction. Only after the intervention of several observers from the Presidential Council and the Ombudsman did the police allow demonstrators to leave via the small Luzhkov Bridge across the canal.
"Good policing means effectively managing large crowds of peaceful people to ensure that they can safely exercise their right to express themselves," Williamson said. "Unfortunately the police in central Moscow failed to create the right conditions for many of the people gathered there to leave the area safely once the situation turned chaotic."
Panfilova said that she and other observers from the Presidential Council tried to intervene with the police when they saw police acting in a way they considered abusive. But she said such attempts were useless in trying to rein in the riot police. "We tried to do something about the number and brutality of detentions by intervening with the leadership of the Moscow police, but it seems that the riot police would not even listen to them," Panfilova said.
Violence by Protesters
Some protesters also resorted to violence against police. Human Rights Watch researchers saw some protesters use smoke bombs and pelt police officers with water bottles, empty and full. Several witnesses also confirmed to Human Rights Watch numerous media reports that aggressive youths threw chunks of asphalt and stones at police. Some demonstrators also turned over several portable toilets in an attempt to make barricades and threw a flagpole at the police.
A witness told Human Rights Watch that a stone hit a policeman in the face and that he bled profusely. Another witness told Human Rights Watch that he saw two incidents in which protesters attacked individual police officers and beat them with hands and fists. Some protesters snatched helmets and radios from police officers, and threw them into the canal.
According to official reports by the Minister of Internal Affairs, 20 officers were injured and 3 required hospitalization. Video footage indicates that some protesters used mace against the police. A Human Rights Watch researcher saw a crowd of demonstrators throw orange and banana peels, bottles and all sorts of street garbage at a car belonging to NTV, a pro-governmental federal television channel known for its efforts to discredit the opposition.
Detentions and Military Conscription
By 10 p.m. on May 6, the Internal Affairs Ministry reported that law enforcement officials had detained over 400 people. On May 7, however, OVD Info, an independent website featuring information about police detentions during public protests, indicated that about 650 people had been arrested, providing most of the names and identifying specific police precincts where people were held.
Some were released several hours later. Others were held overnight. The majority of those tried the next day were sentenced to fines of up to 1,000 rubles [approximately US$30] for "violating the established procedure for arranging or conducting a demonstration" or for disobeying police, although a few protesters were sentenced to several days of administrative detention. Many protesters, while released, are still awaiting trial.
Human Rights Watch is also looking into several cases in which protesters of conscription age were presented with notification that they had been called to perform their military service. Numerous media and blog accounts also reported multiple cases in which this happened.
Military service in Russia is infamous for brutal hazing and other grave abuses of the rights of conscripts. As a result, draft quotas are hard to meet as most men of conscription age seek to avoid service, whether through deferments or other means. In 2002 Human Rights Watch published a report documenting the illegal practice by police of detaining young men to deliver them to military recruitment offices, although police should have no role in draft enforcement. Based on reports from detainees, it would appear the government is now using the police to issue draft notifications as a punitive and intimidation measure against young protest activists, Human Rights Watch said.
"To use the well-founded fear of exposure to abuse and harm in the draft system as a form of punishment to discourage young men from taking part in public protests, is an outrageous and cynical tactic," Williamson said.
May 7 Protests
On May 7, while the presidential inauguration ceremony was in progress, small groups of peaceful activists came together in several locations in central Moscow to express their frustration that Putin was becoming Russia's president for the third time. Many wore white ribbons, the symbol of the protest movement, and chanted slogans. Some played musical instruments and sang.
Media and blog reports said that the police "mopped up" the city center and even raided some popular cafes, detaining anyone they saw wearing white ribbons. OVD Info reported that 499 peaceful protestors were detained on May 7. Practically all of them were released after being held for a short period. On May 8, similar detentions of peaceful street protesters continued, with dozens more people detained by early afternoon.
Human Rights Watch is one of the world's leading independent organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights. By focusing international attention where human rights are violated, we give voice to the oppressed and hold oppressors accountable for their crimes. Our rigorous, objective investigations and strategic, targeted advocacy build intense pressure for action and raise the cost of human rights abuse. For 30 years, Human Rights Watch has worked tenaciously to lay the legal and moral groundwork for deep-rooted change and has fought to bring greater justice and security to people around the world.
"The Fair Share NDC is more than just a pledge, it is a road map for how the U.S. can prevent the coming catastrophe," said one campaigner.
A coalition of climate campaigners on Tuesday published a proposal "for how the U.S. can play a bigger role in tackling the global climate emergency."
Described as "a civil society model document for the U.S. climate action pledge submission to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change" under the landmark Paris agreement, the Fair Share Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) is a "comprehensive plan for the United States to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance climate action in an equitable way both domestically and internationally."
Russell Armstrong, international policy liaison at the U.S. Climate Action Network, a member of the coalition, explained that "the Fair Share NDC is more than just a pledge, it is a road map for how the U.S. can prevent the coming catastrophe."
The plan sets targets for the U.S. to slash domestic carbon dioxide emissions by 80% by 2035 from 2005 levels, in line with "scientific standards and universally accepted global justice principles."
Allie Rosenbluth, U.S. program manager at coalition member Oil Change International, said: "The U.S. has a long way to go to become the climate leader the world needs. It's the largest producer of oil and gas in human history, and it plans to expand fossil fuels far beyond what's compatible with a livable climate."
"The Fair Share NDC shows what the U.S. must do to change course, starting with an equitable phaseout of fossil fuels and paying its fair share to the countries dealing with the consequences of U.S. extraction," she added.
The proposal is centered on a phased approach to ending all fossil fuel production, with coal to be eliminated by the end of the decade and oil and gas by 2031. The plan also proposes the development of "robust public transportation infrastructure and transitioning to 100% clean energy by 2030."
"This transition will also be fair, funded, feminist, and equitable," the report states. "A funded fossil fuel phaseout means that wealthy Global North countries commit to paying their fair share for fossil fuel phaseout in their own countries and in the Global South. A feminist fossil fuel phaseout means a gender-just energy transition from an extractive, fossil-fueled economy to a regenerative, care-based economy that sustains life and well-being for all."
According to Oil Change International:
The U.S.' historic emissions are so large that the U.S. cannot mitigate enough emissions domestically to fulfill its "fair share" of responsibility for the climate crisis. It must also provide Global South countries annually with $106 billion in mitigation funding and $340 billion worth of adaptation and loss and damage funding by 2030. To mobilize money on such a scale, the U.S. can redirect funding for fossil fuel subsidies and military weaponry, and make wealthy elites and big polluters pay for the damages they've already caused. Finally, changing global rules on debt, taxes, trade, and technology will also significantly expand the fiscal space Global South countries have to finance their own transitions, lowering the overall bill.
The report warns that the U.S. must commit "to avoiding dangerous distractions and unproven technological solutions, such as
forest offsets; carbon market mechanisms; carbon capture and storage, direct air capture, enhanced oil recovery, and other false solutions that act as dangerous distractions to only delay phasing out of fossil fuel production."
Tuesday is False Solutions Day during the Global Week of Action for Climate Finance and a Fossil-Free Future, which runs from September 13-20 and focuses on pressuring Global North governments to "stop making empty promises" and "cease pandering to corporations to perpetuate fossil fuels."
Basav Sen, climate policy director at the Institute for Policy Studies, a member of the coalition, said in a statement that "the U.S. is the world's largest oil and gas producer and largest cumulative greenhouse gas emitter."
"It's time the U.S. took responsibility for its outsized role in causing the climate crisis," Sen added. "The Fair Share NDC is a pathway for the U.S. to actually become the climate leader it claims to be, both internationally and at home."
"By blocking access to IVF and trying to control how families grow, MAGA Republicans in the Senate are proving just how far they're willing to go to impose Trump's out-of-touch, authoritarian vision."
In another effort to call out Republicans in Congress for pushing deadly policies that restrict reproductive freedom, Senate Democrats on Tuesday held a vote to open debate on legislation that is intended "to protect and expand nationwide access to fertility treatment, including in vitro fertilization."
The tally was 51-44, short of the 60 votes needed to start debate on the Right to IVF Act (S. 4555). Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) voted with every Democrat and Independent present to advance the bill, while Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Joe Manchin (I-W.Va.), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), and JD Vance (R-Ohio) did not participate.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) previously held a vote on the legislation in July—part of a broader strategy in the lead-up to the November election that has also featured votes on the Right to Contraception Act and the Reproductive Freedom for Women Act. In all cases, Republican senators have blocked the bills from advancing to final votes.
In addition to deciding the makeup of Congress, U.S. voters are set to choose whether former Republican President Donald Trump or Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris returns to the White House. Throughout the contest, Harris has campaigned on expanding reproductive freedom at the federal level and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, has shared how his family was made possible through fertility treatments.
Harris said on social media after Tuesday's vote that Senate Republicans "made clear—again—that they will not protect access to the fertility treatments many couples need to fulfill their dream of having a child."
Meanwhile, Trump has both bragged about his role in reversing Roe v. Wade, which enabled a fresh wave of state-level abortion bans, but also attempted to distance himself from the most extreme laws and proposals. He also chose Vance as his running mate, heightening fears of what their election would mean for reproductive rights nationwide.
"By all accounts, a vote to protect something as basic and popular as IVF shouldn't be necessary. But sadly it is very necessary, thanks to attacks against reproductive care by Donald Trump and his Project 2025," Schumer said Tuesday, referring to the Heritage Foundation-led initiative designed for the next Republican president that Trump has tried to disavow.
"From the moment Donald Trump's MAGA Supreme Court reversed Roe, the hard-right made clear they would keep going. As we saw earlier this year in Alabama, IVF has become one of the hard-right's next targets," Schumer continued, recalling the state Supreme Court's February decision recognizing frozen embryos as children.
After the vote, the Democratic leader declared that "Senate Republicans just blocked the bill to protect IVF—AGAIN. They keep trying to tell everyone who will listen that they support IVF. But their actions speak louder."
Like Schumer and other critics, Christina Harvey, executive director of Stand Up America, pointed to Project 2025 on Thursday.
"Donald Trump can try to walk away from Project 2025, but his fingerprints are all over it. At least 140 former Trump administration and campaign officials helped craft this far-right agenda," she said in a statement. "Trump's public disavowal is nothing more than an attempt to deceive voters while his allies in Congress push the very policies he's pretending to distance himself from."
"Project 2025 isn't a distant, abstract threat—it's a real, extremist agenda that MAGA Republicans are eager to implement. By blocking access to IVF and trying to control how families grow, MAGA Republicans in the Senate are proving just how far they're willing to go to impose Trump's out-of-touch, authoritarian vision," Harvey added. "As more Americans learn about the policies in Project 2025, the stakes at the ballot box this November will become even clearer."
Democratic National Committee spokesperson Aida Ross targeted the Republican vice presidential candidate, saying that "JD Vance celebrated when Donald Trump 'proudly' overturned Roe v. Wade and paved the way for threats to IVF access for Americans who want to start or grow their family. Today, Vance couldn't be bothered to show up to vote on protecting IVF access, after voting against the same protections in June."
"Vance is showing us who he is and we should believe him," Ross added. "The American people will remember that Vance didn't show up for them, and they'll make that clear when they reject the Trump-Vance ticket's anti-choice Project 2025 agenda in November."
American Bridge 21st Century, a Democratic super political action committee, said the vote shows Republicans "are full of sh*t on protecting IVF," specifically calling out Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), and Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who are seeking reelection this November and have previously claimed to support access to fertility treatments.
"Sens. Rick Scott, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and Deb Fischer's hypocrisy on IVF underscores the Republican Party's refusal to support and protect reproductive rights," said American Bridge Senate communications director Nico Delgado. "Voters already know the GOP's damaging stance on abortion—and each vote against protecting IVF only deepens their credibility crisis."
Indivisible's co-founder and co-executive Director Leah Greenberg similarly said in a statement that "Trump and the GOP have been scrambling to hide their unpopular, outdated views on reproductive rights, but they're not fooling anybody."
Greenberg continued:
When Republicans send mixed messages on TV and online, look at their voting records. They've consistently voted against protecting personal freedoms—from access to abortion and contraceptives to IVF. For decades, they've chipped away at reproductive rights, and it's only gotten worse since Trump entered politics.
"As attacks on reproductive rights intensify, including MAGA efforts against contraception, we can't let our guard down. Indivisible proudly supports Sen. Schumer and Democrats for not only standing up for these fundamental rights, but continuously calling out their Republican colleagues' blatant lies.
Millions rely on contraception and IVF to build their families and lives, including Gov. Walz who has shared his family's struggles with fertility. These rights are fundamental and widely supported, and Republicans are straight-up trying to take them away. It is not only weird—it's dangerous.
"We commend Senate Democrats for taking decisive and strategic action by bringing this bill for a vote," she added. "Between now and November, we'll make sure every single voter sees through Republican bullshit and knows they voted against IVF protections today."
At the hearing, advocate Maya Berry said she "experienced the very issue that we're attempting to deal with today."
After Republican lawmakers and some activists objected to Arab American Institute executive director Maya Berry's inclusion in the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing on the rise in hate crimes in the country, GOP Sen. John Kennedy unleashed what one critic said was anti-Muslim "hate speech" during his questioning.
"You support Hamas, don't you?" asked the Louisiana senator at the hearing titled "A Threat to Justice Everywhere: Stemming the Tide of Hate Crimes in America." Kennedy also conflated Hamas with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the agency tasked with providing public services and aid to Gaza's 2.3 million residents.
Berry replied that it was "exceptionally disappointing that you're looking at an Arab American witness before you and saying, 'You support Hamas.'"
She then said clearly, "I do not support Hamas," but was cut off by Kennedy as he raised his voice to accuse her of being unable to disavow the group, also accusing her of supporting Hezbollah and Iran.
"You should hide your head in a bag," said Kennedy, drawing gasps from the audience.
The "horrific remark" was "a blatant example of anti-Arab, anti-Palestinian, and anti-Muslim rhetoric," said the Muslim voter mobilization group Emgage Action.
The Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee denounced Kennedy's "horrible" comment, instead amplifying Berry's response, in which she said that while taking part in a hearing on hate speech and hate crimes, she "experienced the very issue that we're attempting to deal with today."
"This has been, regrettably, a real disappointment but very much an indication of the danger to our democratic institutions that we're in now," said Berry.
Berry also faced condemnation from Kennedy over her opposition to the United States' decision to suspend funding for UNRWA—a move that resulted from unverified Israeli claims that agency employees had worked with Hamas, and which has been denounced by international rights groups and experts due to its impact on people who rely on the agency in Gaza.
"Maya Berry went before the committee to discuss hate crimes. Both Ms. Berry and the topic should have been treated with the respect and seriousness they deserve," said Robert McCaw, government affairs director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). "Instead, Sen. Kennedy and others chose to be an example of the bigotry Arabs, Palestinians, and Muslims have faced in recent months and years."
Republicans on the committee had decried Democrats for inviting witnesses whose testimony delved into issues aside from antisemitism—which was conflated with anti-Zionism in a bill passed by the House earlier this year and in one introduced in the Senate.
Along with Berry, a leading advocate against anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bias in the U.S., the Democrats invited Kenneth Stern, director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate, who has denounced right-wing groups for "weaponizing" claims of antisemitism against people who speak out against the Israeli government.
In her testimony, Berry spoke about the rise in hate crimes against Arab and Muslim Americans, as well as against Jewish people, Black people, Asian Americans, and other groups.
After Israel began its bombardment of Gaza in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack last October, CAIR reported a 56% rise in hate crimes against Palestinians and Muslims in the United States, with 8,061 attacks reported in 2023. From January-June 2024, the grou documented 4,951 complaints, a 69% increase over the same period in 2023.
Arif Rafiq, a strategist and author, said that there would likely be "no censure of Sen. Kennedy" following his comments in the hearing.
"Bigotry toward Arabs and Muslims, even in this most brazen form," said Rafiq, "is acceptable in American politics."