Open lecture by Anastasia Burakova: “Persecution of Russian NGO activists: steps and case studies”

The GULAGECHOES project was delighted to host an open lecture on December 10th in the Aleksanteri Institute by Anastasia Burakova on the on NGO activism and its challenges in the Russian Federation today organised by Dr Larisa Kangaspuro.  The lecture was directly related to the project’s concerns with the human rights of prisoners confined in penal facilities in the Russian Federation. Anastasia Burakova is herself an activist in the NGO Open Society and its current chair in St Petersburg so she was able to give first-hand account of the impact of the legislation that specifically targets civil society organisations in Russia that have been recipients of international aid.  In the lecture, case study examples were used to illustrate the various tactics, legal and illegal, employed by the state to constrain NGO activities which stimulated many questions and comments from the audience.