mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";color:black;letter-spacing:.3pt;
mso-fareast-language:EN-GB">This week our guest on the podcast is Valentina
Dmitrievna Melnikova. Valentina Melnikova is a Russian human rights activist
and politician, a graduate of the geology department of Moscow State University
and a specialist in geochemistry, but better known to us all as the executive
secretary of the Union of Committees of Soldiers' Mothers of Russia. Valentina
Melnikova was one of the initiators of the Russian Research Centre for Human
Rights established in 1990.
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";color:black;letter-spacing:.3pt;
mso-fareast-language:EN-GB">The issues discussed in the podcast include: how
did a graduate of the geology department of Moscow State University became a
human rights activist; the difference between the Committees of Soldiers'
Mothers and the Union of Committees of Soldiers' Mothers; cooperation between
the Russian military and the Union of Committees of Soldiers' Mothers; the
notion that Committees of Soldiers' Mothers are intended to help people avoid
military service; the role of Viktor Alksnis; the FSB’s recent decree on
unclassified information dissemination of which can serve to designate organisations
or persons as ‘foreign agents’; the human rights situation and the future of
human rights in Russia.
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";color:black;letter-spacing:.3pt;
mso-fareast-language:EN-GB">This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to
the podcast on our
website or on
SoundCloud,
Spotify and
iTunes. The music, from
Stravinsky’s Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.
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Sergei Nikitin writes
on
Facebook:
"I became a human rights activist overnight in December 1979, when I
learned from a radio broadcast that Soviet troops had entered Afghanistan. My
two sons were still little but I knew a bit about history and I decided that I
will never send my children to the Soviet army led by crazy old folk. Valentina
Dmitrievna Melnikova told Simon Cosgrove and me how her search for like-minded
people, those who cared about their sons, led her to join the Soldiers' Mothers
Committee in 1989. "They were energetic women from all over the Soviet
Union, they knew what they wanted, and they achieved a lot through the then
deputies of the Interregional Deputies Group of the USSR Supreme Soviet. In
1998 we set up an association called the Union of Committees of Soldiers'
Mothers of Russia. Valentina Melnikova describes herself as an ‘informed optimist’
and believes that the prospects for human rights activities are not great:
"Things will get tougher and tougher, more and more lawless. What is to be
done about it? I don't know. I don't expect anything good. But on the other
hand, all of us - Memorial Human Rights Centre, the Independent Psychiatric
Association of Russia, the Union of the Committees of Soldiers' Mothers of
Russia – what can we do if people keep coming for help? So we have to work, we
have to fight.”
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SimonCosgrove adds: A summary of some of the week’s
events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website
here.
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