You're reading: RFE/RL: European Rights Court condemns Moscow over Politkovskaya Probe, Pussy Riot

RFE/RL: European Rights Court condemns Moscow over Politkovskaya Probe, Pussy Riot

Published July 17, 2018 at 5:08 pm

In this file photo taken on February 18, 2014 members of Russian punk group Pussy Riot wearing masks, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova (L) and Maria Alyokhina (R) speak to journalists while leaving the police station of Adler, near Sochi, after her arrest earlier in the host city of the 2014 Winter Olympics. The European Court of Human Rights condemned Russia in two separate judgements on July 17, 2018 over its investigation into murdered journalist Anna Politkovskaya and its treatment of the protest group Pussy Riot. A case involved three members of Pussy Riot, the feminist punk group which made headlines worldwide in 2012 when the women were arrested for performing a protest song in a Moscow church titled "Punk Prayer -- Virgin Mary, Drive Putin Away". The court concluded that Russia had violated their human rights by subjecting them to "humiliating and intimidating" treatment, not providing a fair trial and not allowing them freedom of expression.

Photo by AFP

In two separate judgments, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has condemned Moscow over its investigation into the murder of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya and its treatment of the punk performance-art group Pussy Riot.

In the case of Politkovskaya, who was shot dead in Moscow in 2006, the ECHR ruled that Russia “had failed to take adequate investigatory steps to find the person or persons who had commissioned the murder.”