Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree reforming the Human Rights Council, which will now include the participation of Commander Alexander Kots, who is in charge of some of Russia’s military operations in Ukraine.
Along with Kots, Putin has also included Elena Shishkina, high representative of the All-Russian People’s Front -founded by Putin himself in 2011–, the president of the NGO Just Help, Olga Demicheva, and eight other prominent figures, according to the Russian agency TASS.
Putin’s decision to include ten new members of the Human Rights Council entails the departure of ten other representatives, including journalists Ekaterina Vinakurova, Ivan Zasurski and Nikolais Svanidze.
The president of the human rights organization Committee Against Torture, Igor Kaliapin, and the executive secretary of the St. Petersburg Human Rights Council, Natalia Evdokimova, have also left the Council.
The Russian Human Rights Council is a body founded in 1993 and later reformed in 2004. Its main mission is to advise the President of the country in order to guarantee and protect the fundamental rights and freedoms of citizens.
