Russia on Friday criticised Amnesty International's annual report on the country's human rights situation as "politically biased". "The authors of the report failed to avoid political bias and demonstrate an objective, unbiased approach to evaluate the situation," a statement posted on the Russian foreign ministry's website www.mid.ru said.
The report, released earlier on Friday, said President Dmitry Medvedev's reforms to rid Russia of police violence, legal impunity and unfair detention have been "piecemeal" and done little to curb frequent rights abuses. "We would like to stress," the foreign ministry said, "that it is unacceptable to use the dialogue of human rights in order to put political pressure on certain states, creating a distorted view of the efforts made by national government in the human rights sphere by the international community."
Amnesty said that the Kremlin had been sending mixed messages on freedom, asserting that while the official rhetoric has changed and democratic activism is growing, police crackdowns on protesters and attacks on journalists continued. Medvedev, who was steered into the Kremlin by his mentor Vladimir Putin in 2008, has pledged to fight corruption, reinforce the rule of law and build civil society in Russia.
No But critics have said that the Russian public has seen few tangible results more than halfway through his first term. The foreign ministry said rights groups' reports amounted to mere "speculation". Moscow will look to United Nations reports on rights for its guidelines, it said. "It is these (UN reports) - and not the speculations of the authors of the analytical reports, who have appropriated the status of 'international arbitrators' - that are a reference point for us in seeking ways to overcome existing problems."
In February, UN rights chief Navi Pillay said attempts by Medvedev to improve the human rights situation have fallen short, echoing the Amnesty report and criticism long expressed by foreign governments. Among the most recent examples of shortfalls, Amnesty highlighted the 2009 death of 37-year-old lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who colleagues say was denied access to adequate medical care in pre-trial detention.