192 Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe, ‘‘OSCE/ODIHR Regrets that Restrictions Force Cancellation of Election Observation Mission to Russian Federation Feb. 7, 2008. US. Department of State,
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2008: Russia. 8
Luke Harding, Russia Election Not Free or Fair, Say Observers
The Guardian, Mar. 3,
2008. The International Election Observation Mission—Russian
Federation, 4 December 2011 State Duma Elections, Statement of Preliminary Findings and Conclusions, Dec. 5, 2011 at 1. the planned observer mission.
6
The US. State Department cited the Russian government’s unprecedented restrictions on ODIHR and noted that international observers who did witness the poll deemed it unfair, given frequent abuses of administrative resources, a heavily
biased media environment, and restrictive changes to the election code.
7
The COE, the only outside body to field observers in the 2008 presidential election, heavily critiqued the election and lamented the absence of ODIHR observers. The COE called the 2008 poll more of a plebiscite than a genuine democratic exercise, citing the
Kremlin’s deliberate exclusion of the lone democratic challenger Mikhail Kasyanov, a former Prime Minister
dismissed by Putin in 2004; the uneven media access favoring candidate (and Putin’s preferred successor) Dmitry Medvedev; and the pressure placed byre- gional and local officials on public sector workers to vote for
Medvedev.
8
While ODIHR has since conducted election observation missions in Russia, the OSCE has assessed that the convergence of the State and the governing party in elections fails to reflect genuine choice.
9
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Sewell Chan, ‘‘Russia’s Gay
Propaganda Laws Are Illegal, European Court Rules
The New York Times, June 20, 2017. Human Rights First, Spread of Russian-Style Propaganda Laws Fact Sheet July 11, 2016. European Court of Human Rights, Legislation in Russia Banning the Promotion of Homosexuality Breaches Freedom of Expression and is Discriminatory, June 20, 2017. Sewell Chan,
‘‘Russia’s Gay Propaganda Laws Are Illegal, European Court Rules
The New York Times, June 20, 2017. Russian LGBT Network, ‘‘22% of Hate Crimes In Russia Are Committed Against LGBT https://www.lgbtnet.org/en/content/22-hate-crimes-russia-are-committed-against-lgbt (visited Dec.
31, 2017).
Alec Luhn, Russian Anti-Gay Law Prompts Rise in Homophobic Violence
The Guardian, Sept. 1, 2013.
6
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