Oleg Orlov: "The meeting between Prime Minister of Great Britain and human rights activists testifies to Cameron's concern about the state of human rights in Russia"

On September, 12, a meeting of Russian human rights activists with Prime Minister of Great Britain David Cameron was held in the Public Center named after Andrey Sakharov. 

The action in which five human rights activists and Dmitry Muratov, Editor-in-Chief of "Novaya Gazeta", took part lasted about half an hour and passed off in non-public regime. 

"This meeting had practically only one subject, i.e. human rights in Russia, and during it we touched upon many points crucial for Russia, - one of its participants, Head of "Memorial" Human Rights Center Oleg Orlov, said to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent. - We shared our estimations and opinions in reply to Mr. Cameron's questions".

"We spoke of crimes against people who fall into the hands of representatives of the state. The most exact description for what is happening is the word "impunity": criminal cases which are accomplished and referred to court can be counted on the fingers of one hand", Orlov said.

The participants of the meeting with Prime Minister of Great Britain spoke of tortures and Magnitsky's case in this context, political assassinations, assaults at human rights activists, journalists, public figures, and impunity of the murderers for these crimes. 

Speaking of the situation with freedom of speech in Russia the human rights activists touched upon the theme of election and its monitoring and also the refusal to register the Republican party and PARNAS (Party of People's Freedom). 

Oleg Orlov and his colleagues consider that freedom of speech and democracy cannot be brought to Russia from outside, it is the task of civil society to create them.

"We can only hope that Russia's European partners will render assistance in this respect by means of different international instruments", Orlov says. 

"Prime Minister learned nothing new, - Orlov supposes. - I think he has very competent personnel in the Embassy who are entirely informed. The meeting is important by itself: it is a sign of Mr. Cameron's concern about the situation with human rights in Russia which he expressed during his visit".