Ekaterina Fomina is a woman human rights defender and journalist. She has been collaborating with various prominent Russian human rights media outlets, including Novaya Gazeta and iStories. She is the former editor-in-chief of the human rights media outlet “Glasnaya,” a feminist media outlet profiling women’s voices, breaking gender stereotypes and advancing gender equality. Ekaterina Fomina’s current reporting focuses on crimes committed by the Russian military within the framework of Russia’s full-scale invasion in Ukraine, including the weaponisation of sexual and sexualised violence.
The environment for the work of human rights defenders (HRDs) in the Russian Federation is difficult, especially for those who defend and promote the rights of LGBTI people, ethnic and religious minorities, refugees, as well as activists of the North Caucasus and the unlawfully annexed Crimean Peninsula. HRDs are often subjected to acts of harassment, surveillance, physical attacks, threat, raids and searches on their offices and homes, slander and smear campaigns, judicial harassment, arbitrary detention, and ill-treatment, as well as violations of the rights to freedom of expression, association, and assembly. There have also been cases where HRDs have been murdered as a result of their work.
