One of the most famous international human rights organizations, Amnesty International,

held a colorful holiday in Hamburg on May 26.

The holiday was timed to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the adoption by the United Nations General Assembly (UN) The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the opening of the annual assembly of the German section of Amnesty International.

More than 500 people gathered on the riverbank. The citizens were greeted by the Choir of the Hamburg Voices of Amnesty, choreographed performances, and young men and women dressed in the colors of Amnesty International sailed to the celebration on boats.

In front of the gathered participants of the event, a speech was made: The Secretary General of the German section of Amnesty International, Markus N. Beeko, and the press secretary of the board, Vasily Nemits.

Even during the holiday, Amnesty International volunteers continued their daily work to protect the rights of citizens in countries where rights and freedoms are still violated.

It was a pleasure to meet Eva Pommerien at the festival, whom we met last December at a meeting with a local Amnesty International activist in Lüneburg.

The German section of Amnesty International played a special role in my fate and in the fate of my wife Galina. Largely thanks to this organization and personally to Peter Franck, we managed to emigrate from unsafe Kazakhstan to Germany, where another well-known human rights organization, the Hamburg Foundation for the Politically Persecuted (Hamburger Stiftung für politisch verfolgte), takes care of us and helps us.

Photo gallery from the holiday.

Alexander Goncharenko, doctor, human rights activist and politician

According to the Baza telegram channel, the director of school No. 1 in the city of Pyt-Yakh, in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, Irina Kotova, complained to the police about the mother of one of the students who came to school with "yellow-blue" pigtails on the eve of Victory Day. The vigilant headmistress saw the shades of the Ukrainian flag in the schoolgirl's hairstyle, and took the "Yin-Yang" sign shaved on her head for another logo of the Azov regiment. According to the girl's mother: "The daughter herself chose bright colors of light green and blue, and the flag of Ukraine has nothing to do with it at all." The girl's mother had to explain all this in detail to the commission on juvenile affairs. It is not yet known how this story will end for the mother and the girl. Everyone remembers well the sad story of Alexey and Masha Moskalev . After the start of the so-called Special Military Operation of the Russian armed forces, the number of cases of whistleblowing has sharply increased.

According to "Lenta.<url>" denunciations in Russia have become commonplace. Requests from ordinary Russians and professional informers to check the reliability of politicians, artists, popular bloggers and even their own relatives are pouring into law enforcement agencies and state agencies in a large stream. Most often, the reason is suspicion of a wrong position on Ukraine. In 2022, the number of applications to Roskomnadzor increased by 26 percent. According to the ministry, most of the signals received concerned the posting on the Internet of "illegal information, including fakes about the conduct of a special military operation in Ukraine."

In my article dated 06/27/2022: "Russia is a country of unlearned lessons!", which I wrote to the decision of the Altai Regional Court of June 14, 2022 on the complaint of my lawyer Vadim Movshovich, who asked to stop, or rather to cancel the resolution of April 11, 2022 of the Oktyabrsky district court of Barnaul. In it, the court found me guilty in absentia of committing an administrative offense under part 1 of article 20.3.3 of the Code of Administrative Offences of the Russian Federation (Public actions aimed at discrediting the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation).

In the article, I suggested that, apparently, informing will be used en masse again. One at the table was silent when the toast to the leader was raised, the second told an unpatriotic joke, and the third just didn't like someone. I do not pretend to be a prophet, unfortunately, apparently I was right in this.

40 years ago, in 1982, Sergei Dovlatov's novel "The Zone. Notes of the overseer" is the source of one of the most famous quotes from Dovlatov: "We curse Comrade Stalin endlessly, and, of course, for the cause. And yet I want to ask — who wrote four million denunciations?" Dovlatov himself answered his question — "ordinary Soviet people," but denunciations supported the Russian government long before the appearance of Soviet people. Time will pass, and another writer exploring modern Russian history will ask a similar question. It is a pity for the country and the people who have not learned the lessons of their own history!

Alexander Goncharenko, doctor, Russian politician and human rights activist.