IRELAND:The murders of the Russian former spy Alexander Litvinenko and journalist Anna Politkovskaya are symptomatic of a deteriorating regard for human rights in the Russian Federation, according to the Green Party.
Leading a protest outside the Russian embassy in Dublin yesterday to mark International Human Rights Day, the party called on Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern to make human rights a central consideration in Ireland's diplomatic dealings with Russia.
"Vladimir Putin's system of so-called guided democracy is far from democratic. He is using it to keep his political opponents and dissenting voices under control. The media, business, NGOs, elections and political parties are all subject to rigid state control," said Green Party chairman John Gormley.
"Human rights violations by the justice system, the police and the military are barely investigated and rarely punished. So it is not surprising that politically motivated killings have not either been properly investigated or brought to court. The situation there is going from bad to worse."
Separately, a campaigner for human rights in West Papua yesterday urged the Government to use its influence at the European Union to push for negotiations between the Indonesian government and the people of the former Dutch colony.
Carmel Budiardjo, who spent three years as an untried prisoner under Indonesia's Suharto regime from 1968 to 1971 and is patron of the Dublin-based group West Papua Action, said the EU should put pressure on Jakarta to enter into talks with representatives of West Papua's four million inhabitants.
Meanwhile, six Irish people who stayed in a top London hotel at the same time as Mr Litvinenko was poisoned are being sought by officials.
The Department of Foreign Affairs said it has located four of the six and it would continue to seek the remaining two.
Hundreds of guests and customers of the Millennium Hotel and its bar on November 1st are being offered tests to determine if they have been contaminated with radiation.
