JURIST - Paper Chase: Russia creating rights center to monitor abuses in Europe and US

[JURIST] Russia will create an organization to track and monitor human rights abuses in Europe and the US, according to Anatoly Kucherena, a lawyer on Russia's new Public Chamber [official website, in Russian], an ombudsman-like body established two years ago at the urging of Russian President Vladimir Putin to analyze draft legislation and serve as a watchdog on federal and regional administrative authorities. Kucherena said Friday that the new organization would have its headquarters in either Brussels or Germany and would have Russian human rights activists prepare human rights reports on European nations and the US. The impetus behind the creation of the organization was reportedly the receipt of letters from Russian-speakers in Europe and the US complaining about rights violations there. Kucherena emphasized that the purpose of the human rights monitoring center would be to facilitate "an exchange of opinions" within the human rights community, not to get into a political confrontation with Western nations. Reuters has more.

For several years China has issued an annual counterblast [JURIST report] to the annual US country reports on human rights [official website] in an effort to turn the political tables on Washington in the face of its ongoing criticism of Beijing by highlighting rights-related problems in the United States itself.

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