Today Amnesty International launched Amnesty International Report 2007, its annual assessment of human rights worldwide.

In the Russian Federation ‘human rights defenders and independent civil society came under increasing pressure. People seeking justice faced intimidation and death threats. The European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russia had violated the rights to life, to liberty and security, to respect for private and family life and to an effective remedy, and to the prohibition of torture,’ Amnesty says.

Khodorkovsky-Lebedev’s case is sited as an example of ‘unfair trial’. As the report concerns the events of the year 2006, it writes while Mikhail Khodorkovsky in Krasnokamensk penal colony detention: ‘Former Yukos oil company head Mikhail Khodorkovsky and associate Platon Lebedev, serving nine-year prison sentences following convictions in 2005 for fraud and tax evasion, were denied the right to serve their sentences in or near their home areas. Mikhail Khodorkovsky was unlawfully held in a punishment cell for two weeks in January for having a copy of publicly available government decrees on prisoner conduct. He was also held in a punishment cell for a week in March for drinking tea in an unauthorized place.’

‘Prisoners served sentences after trials that failed to meet international fair trial standards, and in which their lawyers considered the charges to be politically motivated,’ Amnesty notes.