Russian Federation - January 2025

A court in Vladimir region sentenced the late Alexey Navalny’s three lawyers to between 3.5 and 5.5 years in a prison colony on 17 January in a closed-door trial. Although none of their conduct was, before this trial, considered outside the bounds of routine legal procedure, Vadim Kobzev, Alexey Lipster and Igor Sergunin were convicted of belonging to an “extremist organization” for passing letters and information between Navalny and his colleagues at the Anti-Corruption Foundation. This is the first time since the Soviet era that lawyers have been similarly punished.  The independence and security of the legal profession in Russia has deteriorated significantly since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and human rights group First Department found 174 cases of legal harassment of lawyers in 2023. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Russia called for their release and described their sentences as “part of an alarming pattern of targeted repression and State control.” 

Sources: Meduza, Reuters, United Nations 

As of 1 January 2025, a legal amendment to the law ‘On state genomic registration’ means that anyone found guilty of an administrative (i.e. non-criminal) offense will be required to submit a DNA sample to a federal DNA database. The collection of genetic material has been mandated since 2009 for major violent crimes and was expanded to include prisoners and those accused of committing a felony in 2023. While some social groups such as people with disabilities, employees of the Interior Ministry, and pregnant women are exempted, there is no further option to refuse to comply. Human rights activists have long warned that the mass collection of DNA would foster the creation of a police state and, given the wide range of law enforcement officials with access to Russia’s database, create major risks for abuse of the data.  

Sources: Meduza,Novaya Gazeta Europe, Sistema Garant