UN Authority Figures

UN Economic and Social Council: Russian Federation

A Russian court on Tuesday handed down prison sentences to two men accused of acting violently toward police during anti-Kremlin protests this summer, while separately a court jailed another man for five years over an "extremist" tweet. The sentences came amid a crackdown by authorities on Russia's opposition after a period of unusually large and persistent protests in Moscow.
Source: ABC News, September 3, 2019. Photo: File photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Mission of the Economic and Social Council: "The Economic and Social Council is at the heart of the United Nations system to advance the three dimensions of sustainable development – economic, social and environmental. It is the central platform for fostering debate and innovative thinking, forging consensus on ways forward, and coordinating efforts to achieve internationally agreed goals." (ECOSOC website, "About Us")

Term of office: 2020-2022

Russian Federation's Record on "social development" and "fostering debate":
"The Russian Federation has a highly centralized, authoritarian political system dominated by President Vladimir Putin... Human rights issues included extrajudicial killings, including of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI) persons in Chechnya by local government authorities; enforced disappearances by government authorities; pervasive torture by government law enforcement personnel that sometimes resulted in death and sometimes involved punitive psychiatric incarceration; harsh and life-threatening conditions in prisons; arbitrary or unjust arrest and detention; political prisoners; severe arbitrary interference with privacy; severe suppression of freedom of expression and media, including the use of "antiextremism" and other laws to prosecute peaceful dissent; violence against journalists; blocking and filtering of internet content and banning of online anonymity; severe suppression of the right of peaceful assembly; increasingly severe suppression of freedom of association, including overly restrictive laws on "foreign agents" and "undesirable foreign organizations;" severe restrictions on religious freedom; undue restrictions on freedom of movement of those charged with political offenses; credible reports of refoulement; severe limits on participation in the political process, including restrictions on opposition candidates' ability to seek public office and conduct political campaigns, and on the ability of civil society to monitor election processes; widespread corruption at all levels and in all branches of government;"
(U.S. State Department's Country Report on Human Rights Practices 2018, Russian Federation)