Inside Geneva: are democracies copying Russia’s repressive policies? 

The UN Human Rights Council has just concluded its autumn session, and there was one particular report – not as much in the news as it perhaps deserves to be – that caught my eye and got me thinking. 

That was the latest report on human rights in Russia. Special rapporteur Mariana Katzarova documented a repression now so stifling that virtually all freedom of expression is silenced. 

“Russia is now run through a state-sponsored system of fear and punishment, where dissent is erased and civic space dismantled,” Katzarova told Geneva journalists. She highlighted the closure of independent media, of human rights organisations, and the ‘foreign agents’ law’, which forces anyone getting support from outside Russia to register with the Russian authorities. 

The law is a way of stamping out dissent. It is used against journalists, lawyers, civil society groups and human rights defenders. Those who continue to speak out face long prison sentences. 

Writers and journalists speak out 

To hammer home her report’s findings, Katzarova brought Russian writers and journalists to Geneva to share their experiences. On Inside Geneva this week, we share fascinating interviews with them. Their perspectives should give us pause for thought.

Inside Geneva

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Boris Akunin, famed Russian author, has lived in exile in the UK for many years, but was nevertheless recently deemed a ‘foreign agent’ by Russia, and sentenced, in absentia, to 14 years in prison for criticising Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

“A foreign agent is anybody they do not approve of,” he told me. “It is not decided by a court of justice. Just some government institution which says you’re a foreign agent, which means that you cannot write, you cannot publish, you cannot teach. You are branded.” 

Radio Free Europe journalist Alsu Kurmasheva also took time to talk to Inside Geneva. A dual Russian and US citizen, she was arrested in Russia in 2023 when she travelled to visit her mother, who was ill, in Tatarstan. After months in detention, she was finally released in last year’s historic prisoner swap. 

“It’s been more than a year since I got released from prison,” she said. “Every morning I open my eyes and I’m so thankful.” 

But as well as sharing her relief that she is free, Kurmasheva warned her listeners not to take freedom for granted. “I know democracy and press freedom sound very vague for people who live ordinary lives,” she explained. “But actually when it [repression] comes to you, to your door and rings your bell, it’s too late.” 

This was a theme emphasised by all the writers and journalists who travelled to Geneva. Akunin was particularly concerned about trends in countries that pride themselves on their democracy.

“Traditional democracy is in crisis,” he told Inside Geneva. “Reasonable and grown-up people have become a minority. We are entering a totally new world where everything will be different. I’m very much worried about what’s going to happen in the UK, in France. In the United States it has already happened.” 

Handbook for repression 

It was a chilling coincidence that, the same week these Russian free speech advocates were in Geneva, in the United States, the late-night chat show host Jimmy Kimmel was taken off air, and dozens of less famous Americans lost their jobs, apparently for expressing less than adulatory opinions about the murdered right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk. 

It is perfectly reasonable to believe it’s not appropriate to say negative things about a young man so brutally killed. But is it wrong to question the views he held, and shared so widely? Surely not. And yet some of the most powerful people in the United States have publicly suggested that those asking such questions should be punished – by, for example, losing their jobs. 

At the same time, the US administration has been suing media outlets it deems disloyal, and asking universities to hand over the personal data of their foreign students. Irene Khan, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression, sees a pattern that is all too familiar. 

“This issue about the media has been there in the authoritarian rulebook for a long time,” she explained. “Go after the media if you want to stay in power. What is happening now is that in more and more countries we see an authoritarian trend coming generally into politics.” 

For UN special rapporteur Mariana Katzarova, these are not just warning signs, they cause déjà vu, because she has documented them all in Russia. 

“I feel I’m monitoring the handbook for repression that the Russian government is using against its own civil society, journalism, free speech,” she told me.  

“This handbook, unfortunately, has been copied by democratic countries, which are starting to experience a clampdown on freedom of expression, of closing television stations, and shows, and newspapers. So, I think it’s a warning, because it could happen to any of us, in any country.” 

Space is shrinking 

I was reminded, talking to Katzarova, that just one year ago I was in New York to chair a panel discussion she organised at the UN, featuring freed Russian political prisoners. She also organised a separate side event at Columbia University, for members of Russia’s LGBTQ community, who have also suffered brutal repression. 

Would such an event be possible now, just one short year later? Columbia is one of the universities that has bowed to pressure from President Trump, paying millions of dollars in relation to protests against the war in Gaza, and adjusting its curriculum. The US administration has also been removing references to LGBTQ rights in government literature, and ending programmes – such as a suicide prevention service – designed to support the LGBTQ community. 

+ Inside Geneva: the future of human rights in Russia

This shrinking of the space for tolerance, as well as the pressure on media, are signs, Akunin and Kurmasheva say, which should alarm us. 

“Just be aware of this danger,” Akunin said. Don’t let it happen. Don’t think that, OK, it’s nothing. They just closed down this TV programme or whatever.” 

“I’m closely watching what’s happening in the United States with the closing of these programmes. Because this is how it starts.” 

“It’s never too late to acknowledge how precious democracy is, how precious freedom is,” adds Kurmasheva. 

To hear the entire conversation, listen to Inside Geneva. I will leave you with one final quote, from a woman whose books I love, and who I was also privileged to interview for this episode. Belarusian writer and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2015, Svetlana Alexievich. Having watched her own country move from the hope of democracy to a bleak reimposition of repression, she warns against the false comfort of staying silent. 

“Through our silence we have lost our country in Belarus. Those people who are keeping silent, they should really do something. Otherwise, what they are leaving to their children is…silence.”