Well, let's start with U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom Annual Report 2010. On page 272 of this report it states that religious freedoms continue to deteriorate. Russian officials continue to describecertain religious and other groups as alien to Russian culture and society, thereby contributing to aclimate of intolerance. Continued high levels of xenophobia and intolerance, including anti-Semitism,have resulted in violent and sometimes lethal hate crimes.
This should be of concern to all those US Citizens who can recall days when schools taught that, among other reasons, the pilgrims (religiousdenotation in that word) left for the New World in order to freely practice religion however each person sought to.
Amnesty International reports police in Grozny broke up a peaceful demonstration organized by the Interregional Committee against Torture on June 24, [2011], to mark the International Day in Support of the Victims of Torture. One of the activists at this event claims to have been beaten by police at the event. He was later attacked in his apartment building.
http://gvnet.com/humantrafficking/Russia.htm offers several reports of human trafficking for sex and other types of scams (which I had witnessed in Bosnia under the watch of UN Police who were frequenting such women)
Silvia’s descent into the dark world of trafficking began when a neighbor told the 19-year-old that she could get a good job as a sales girl in Moscow
Her ‘home’ in Moscow was a grimy hotel in a seedy section of the city. Actually, the entire hotel was a brothel, filled with girls from Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus and other former Soviet republics. “At first we were forced to walk the streets in search of clients,” recalls Silvia. “If I didn’t return with clients, I was beaten. We had to work in thin dresses even in the middle of the Russian winter.”
In 2005 the UN reported through its UNICEF Report that Russia has been an origin, transit, and destination country for women and children trafficked for sexual exploitation to and from numerous countries within the Gulf States, Europe, and North America. Russia has also increasingly become a transit and destination country for labour trafficking, both within the former Soviet Union and from neighbouring countries. Trafficking in Russian children and children from the former Soviet republics into Russia for purposes of pedophilia, and pornography has also been reported.
Let's not overlook the arrest of Victor Bout, the most prolific arms trafficker of the 20th and 21 st century. Nicholas Cage even starred in a movie about this guy. The film crew rented one of Butt's planes for various scenes. The governmental oversight
Russian arms network seen behind Al Qaeda...
Victor Bout, left, shown at a Congo airfield in March 2001, is a Russian arms dealer. An inquiry has begun examining whether Bout was involved in violations of embargoes against the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
The Washington Post reported on February 26, 2002:
U.S. and European law enforcement officials say they have scored an important advance in their efforts to disrupt what some officials describe as the biggest weapons-trafficking network in the world, responsible for supplying the Taliban and terrorist groups from al Qaeda in Afghanistan to the Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines, as well as rebel forces in Africa. For the past three years, U.S. intelligence agencies have covertly been trying to thwart the sprawling arms empire of Victor Bout, a former Soviet military officer whose operation is based in the United Arab Emirates, according to U.S. and European officials. Bout's network is unique, U.S., British and U.N. investigators said, because of its ability to deliver sophisticated weapon systems virtually anywhere in the world.
Victor Bout has long been suspected of supplying weapons to the Taliban in Afghanistan. This adds a new dimension to the United States’ war on terror, and indicates that there is a larger enemy pulling the strings of Al Qaeda, namely Russia.
"Victor Bout, as the largest player in the world in the illicit air logistics business, is a critical aider and abettor to criminal and terrorist organizations, rogue heads of state and insurgencies -- whoever is able to pay," said Lee S. Wolosky, a former National Security Council official.
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