Born into a Jewish family in Ukraine, Vasily Grossman’s monumental account of totalitarian Stalinist Russia, Life and Fate, which included a remarkable portrayal of the battle of Stalingrad during World War II, was banned by the KGB before it could be published in the Soviet Union. In response, Grossman wrote to the then Soviet leader, Nikita Kruschev, ‘I have written in my book what I believed, and continue to believe, to be the truth. I have written only what I have thought through, felt through and suffered through’. Sixty years after the confiscation of Grossman’s manuscript, Aleksandra Skochilenko, an artist and musician, replaced five price tags in a supermarket in St Petersburg with her own tags which read ‘The Russian army bombed an art school in Mariupol with four hundred people sheltering there’ and ‘Stop the war! 4,300 Russian soldiers died in the first three days. Why do they say nothing about it on television?’. She was prosecuted for acting out of ‘political hate’ and in 2023 was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment.
Council of Europe
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Watch this space, Take 2: Execution of Strasbourg’s Landmark Climate Mitigation Judgment Verein KlimaSeniorinnen v. Switzerland
In July 2024, I wrote, together with Chhaya Bharwaj, that the execution of the first climate mitigation judgment of the European Court of Human Rights, Verein KlimaSeniorinnen v. Switzerland, was a space to watch. This was because the Court found, for the first time, that the lack of an adequate legislative framework to mitigate…
The Council of Europe’s Proposed Definition of Terrorism Infringes Human Rights
The Council of Europe (CoE) is preparing to amend its legal definition of terrorism, to largely replicate key elements of the European Union’s (EU) definition in its Counter-terrorism Directive 2017 (and previous Framework Decision on Combating Terrorism 2002). The proposed definition aims to make the CoE definition more comprehensive than the CoE’s…
Electoral Dysfunction: Romania’s Election Annulment, Disinformation, and ECHR Positive Obligations to Combat Election Irregularities
In a historical year for global democratic elections, Romania’s presidential election is the latest European election to have elicited controversy. Days prior to the scheduled second round of voting, the country’s constitutional court annulled the results of the first round voting results. The constitutional court’s decision, which will necessitate a fresh vote, arose in response to…
Joined Cases C-779/21 P, Commission v Front Polisario and C-799/21 P, Council v Front Polisario: The Unresolved Contest Between ‘Benefits’ and ‘Consent’
On 4 October, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Justice upheld the General Court’s annulment of a Council Decision concluding an Amendment to the EU-Morocco Association Agreement. It did so on the grounds that the EU Commission and Council had failed to obtain the consent of the Saharawi people and thereby violated their right…
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