Putin to discuss with ombudsmen human rights observance issues

Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet in the Kremlin on Friday members of the Russian Presidential Council for Civil Society Development and Human Rights (HRC) and federal and regional ombudsmen, the Kremlin press service reported.
“The meeting participants are planned to tell the head of state about their work in the current year, as well as touch upon most important issues of human rights observance and development of the civil society institutions in regions,” the press service said.
The meeting will be held in the run-up to the international Human Rights Day that is marked on December 10.
Putin regularly meets with human rights defenders — both with the officials engaged in this activity and representatives of the public. One of such conversations was held on October 14, 2014 when the president met members of the Human Rights Council. The main issues on the agenda were assistance to Ukrainian refugees, support of non-profit organizations, transparency of elections, problems of the law enforcement system and others.
Speaking of supporting the civil society institutions, including human rights defenders, Putin promised that the state spending on this in 2015 would be increased to 4.7 billion rubles ($86.47 million), while in 2013 this figure stood at 2.7 billion rubles ($49.67 million).
Putin then praised the role of the HRC that in 2014 marked its 10th anniversary. According to the president, over these years the Council “has really become a most important human rights institution of Russia.”

The president thanked the Russian human rights activists for the attention they pay to numerous facts of violation of human rights in the neighbouring country — Ukraine. “Many international human rights organizations hypocritically turn a blind eye to the developments,” he said.
Many of the proposals voiced by the human rights activists turn into presidential instructions. Thus, on the October meeting results the president has already given a number of instructions on organizing assistance to children affected by the armed conflict in the south-east of Ukraine, on perpetuation of the memory of the victims of political repression, on migration problems, on improving law enforcement activity and a number of others.