In the most recent development in the case of deceased Moscow businesswoman Vera Trifonova, investigators say that criminal charges have been filed against medical workers who operated on the woman shortly before her death.

Anatoly Bagmet, head of the investigative department of the Moscow Prosecutor’s Investigative Committee (Moscow SKP), told Interfax on June 11 that an unspecified number of medics are being charged with negligent homicide. They each face up to three years in prison if convicted.

Earlier in the day, Bagmet had stated that Trifonova’s death in the Matrosskaya Tishina pretrial detention facility this past April, which drew widespread comparisons to the scandalous death of Hermitage Capital Management lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, was the result of a medical error. An investigation, he said, had found that medics had forgotten to remove a catheter from the woman’s leg after an operation, which created a blood clot ...

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s arrival in Paris last week for an official visit was accompanied, for many, by an unusual sight: a video clip projected onto the facades of several houses in a bustling tourist area showed a set of Russian matryoshka dolls smeared with blood, concluding with the phrase: "We must not allow Russia’s charm to let us forget its atrocities.”

The video was created by the French branch of Amnesty International, a human rights organization that has reported on rights violations in Russia numerous times. The Belarusian human rights group Charter’97 reported today that 30 members of the organization had also attempted to project the video onto the facade of the Russian embassy. Upon arriving, however, they were met by police and told not to bother nearby residents by playing the clip. The group was then forced to disperse.

Amnesty International France has also set ...

Organizers of the Strategy 31 opposition rallies have turned down a government proposal to settle an ongoing dispute between the Moscow city authorities and the protesters, who continue to insist on their constitutional right to protest where they choose.

In a column published today on Grani.ru, Strategy 31 co-organizer Eduard Limonov said that two people who said that Russian President Dmitri Medvedev had charged them with "settling the conflict on Triumfalnaya” met with him and co-organizers Lyudmila Alexeyeva and Konstantin Kosyakin the day after police detained about 170 activists at their May 31 event. The rally, held on Moscow’s central Triumfalnaya Square, had been dedicated to the defense of the constitutional right to free assembly and had not been sanctioned by city authorities.

At the meeting, said Limonov, the two government representatives proposed the following plan: Strategy 31 organizers would be given permission ...