Vladimir Yegorov is a Russian jounalist and human rights defender. He is the editor-in-chief of Vremya and one of the coordinators of the Russian voters’ rights movement Golos. He has faced repressions by the Russian authorities due to his affiliation with Golos on several occasions. On 5 October 2022 police officers violently conducted a search in his home after which he was diagnosed with craniocerebral injury and numerous contusions, and then detained him for 5 days under the charges of ‘‘resistance of a lawful order of the police.” On 17 August 2023, the human rights defender’s home was raided once again, and he was detained on the same charges for 15 days.
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.
