Chairwoman Hautala addressed today the conference “Andrei Sakharov’s Ideas Today” in Moscow to address the current issues in promoting human rights, especially in Russia. She condemned strongly the imprisonments of Alexey Nikiforov on the grounds of the controversial anti-extremism law. “Today it is him, tomorrow it will be somebody else”, she stressed. [:]

She underlined that as long as there is no proper division of power there can be no safetyguards for human rights in Russia. She regretted that the European Union has effectively failed the Russian human rights defenders and given up on its values and principles in giving in on pragmatism and benefits of oil and gas. While we celebrate the legacy of Andrei Sakharov here today the European Union sadly remains in dire need of re-evaluating its values, she noted. “Nobody believes we have any values if we don’t live up to them.”