In the 1990s, the growth of organized crime (see Russian mafia and Russian oligarchs) and the fragmentation of law enforcement agencies in Russia coincided with a sharp rise in violence against business figures, administrative and state officials, and other public figures. The second President of Russia Vladimir Putin inherited these problems when he took office, and during his election campaign in 2000, the new president won popular support by stressing the need to restore law and order and to bring the rule of law to Russia as the only way of restoring confidence in the country’s economy. According to data by Demoscope Weekly, the Russian homicide rate showed a rise from the level of 15 murders per 100,000 people in 1991, to 32.5 in 1994. Then it fell to 22.5 in 1998, followed by a rise to a maximum rate of 30.5 in 2002, and then a fall to 20 murders per 100,000 people in 2006. Despite positive tendency to reduce, Russia’s index of murders per capita remains one of the highest in the world with the fifth highest of 62 nations.
According to data by Demoscope Weekly, the Russian homicide rate showed a rise from the level of 15 murders per 100,000 people in 1991, to 32.5 in 1994. Then it fell to 22.5 in 1998, followed by a rise to a maximum rate of 30.5 in 2002, and then a fall to 20 murders per 100,000 people in 2006. Despite positive tendency to reduce, Russia’s index of murders per capita remains one of the highest in the world with the fifth highest of 62 nations. There has been a number of high-profile cases of human rights abuses connected to business in Russia. Among other abuses, this most obviously involves abuse of article 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. According to nationwide
opinion poll carried by VCIOM in 2006, 44% of respondents consider Russia “a common house of many nations” where all must have equal rights, 36% think that “Russians should have more rights since they constitute the majority of the population”, 15% think “Russia must be the state of Russian people”. However the question is also what exactly does the term “Russian” denote. For 39% of respondents Russians are all who grew and were brought up in Russia’s traditions; for 23% Russians are those who works for the good of Russia; 15% respondents think that only Russians by blood may be called Russians; for 12% Russians are all for who Russian language is native, for 7% Russians are adepts of Russian Christian Orthodox tradition. As reported by the Associated Press, in 2010 SOVA-Center noted a significant drop of racially motivated violence in Russia in 2009, related to 2008: “71 people were killed and 333 wounded in racist attacks last [2009] year, down from 110 killed and 487 wounded in 2008”. According to a SOVA-Center report, the drop was mostly “due to police efforts to break up the largest and most aggressive extremist groups in Moscow and the surrounding region”. Most of the victims were “dark-skinned, non-Slavic migrant laborers from former Soviet republics in Central Asia ... and the Caucasus”. As Associated Press journalist Peter Leonard commended, “The findings appear to vindicate government claims it is trying to combat racist violence” Currently, an estimated 2 million children live in Russian orphanages, with another 4 million children on the streets. According to a 1998 Human Rights Watch report “Russian children are abandoned to the state at a rate of 113,000 a year for the past two years, up dramatically from 67,286 in 1992. Of a total of more than 600,000 children classified as being ‘without parental care,’ as many as one-third reside in institutions, while the rest are placed with a variety of guardians. From the moment the state assumes their care, orphans in Russia – of whom 95 percent still have a living parent – are exposed to shocking levels of cruelty and neglect.” Once officially labelled as retarded, Russian orphans are “warehoused for life in psychoneurological institutions. In addition to receiving little to no education in such institutions, these orphans may be restrained in cloth
In the face of these longer-term threats, closer relations with the West are clearly in Russia’s interest. In future crises, Russia will need global powers that view it sympathetically rather than indifferently or suspiciously. Nonetheless, Moscow is devoting resources to petty sparring with the United States: while China is following the money toward new markets and building relations with rising powers such as Brazil, Russia is preoccupied with geopolitical stunts with countries like Venezuela and Nicaragua. Finally, what is the real greatest threat to Russia? The country is losing nearly 1 million people a year as death rates exceed birthrates by a wide margin. No foreign power is likely to do Russia as much harm as its dire demographic decline.
As Russias president, Putin and the Federa a flat income tax of 13%, a reduced prof legal codes. As Prime Minister, Putin over police reform. His energy policy has affirm energy superpower. Putin supported highnuclear and defence industries. A rise in f uted to a boom in such sectors as the aut cultivated a “he-man” and “super he cultural icon in Russia with many commer him. He is now currently ranked as the w according to Forbes. Russia faces much m from the south and east. To the south, it h of collision with the Islamic world, from th Asia. Moscow’s past actions in Afghanis brought it the active hostility of Islamic ra control, Pakistan’s and North Korea’s possible Iranian nukes -- are more likely than are U.S or French weapons.
In the east, Chinese power will eclipse Ru with each passing year. Even though they issues, the two giants will face each other Central Asian states and along a vast Sib side is demographically empty and resour
al Assembly passed into law fits tax, and new land and rsaw large scale military and med Russias position as an -tech industries such as the foreign investment contribtomotive industry. Putin has ero� image and is a pop rcial products named after world’s most powerful man more plausible security threats has numerous possible points he Caucasus into Central stan and Chechnya have adicals. If they escaped state s nuclear weapons -- and to threaten Russian cities
ussia’s to a greater degree y have resolved their border r across potentially unstable berian frontier, whose Russian rce rich.
Russia’s lower house of parliament, the Duma, has passed a law imposing heavy fines for providing information about homosexuality to people under 18. Violence between rival protesters spread onto Moscow’s central street on Tuesday, reports the BBC’s Steve Rosenberg in the capital. Pro-church protesters outside the Duma, Moscow, 11 June 2013 Orthodox believers demonstrated their support for the new law on religion. Gay rights campaigners were attacked and there were no police to stop the violence, says our correspondent. When one group ran into a shop to take refuge, their attackers waited and then ran in to find them. Under the new law, private individuals promoting “homosexual behaviour among minors” face fines of up to 5,000 roubles (£100; $155) while officials risk paying 10 times that amount. Businesses and schools could be fined up to 500,000 roubles. Homosexuality was decriminalised in Russia in 1993, but anti-gay sentiment is high. A recent poll found that nearly half of Russians believe that the gay and lesbian community should not enjoy the same rights as other citizens.
Pussy Riot is a Russian feminist punk rock protest group based in Moscow. It was founded in 2011, and has 11 women who are aged, 20 to 33. They are distinguishable by their brightly coloured balaclavas and they also do unauthorized provocative guerrilla performances in public locations, which are edited into music videos and posted online. Their themes in thier music, include feminism, LGBT rights, and policies of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom they regard as an evil dictator. Many Russians were outraged by Pussy Riot’s church protest and supported “the right of the majority to worship in peace”The connection between Pussy Riot and the political performance art group Voina was highlighted by some of the group’s critics, and was called an “aggravating moral circumstance” in the eyes of the conservative public.
Russia has gone through many political changes over the centuries but in relatively recent times it has been particularly volatile. The 20th century was one of great change and one that started with a Russian royal family and progressed via the communist Soviet Union, through to the more democratic processes that we know today. In relative terms, this all happened so quickly so maybe it’s not such a surprise that people still sometimes ask is Russia a communist country?
RUSSIAN POLITICS Edited by Samantha Dilley