The 2018 FIFA World Cup started today with a match between Saudi Arabia and the host nation Russia at the Luzhniki stadium in Moscow.
“This is a very dire time for human rights in Russia,” according to the Russia programme director for Human Rights Watch, Tanya Lokshina, speaking ahead of the start of the 2018 Football World Cup, which kicked off in Moscow earlier today.
Since Vladimir Putin became Russia’s president again in 2012 there has been a “staggering human rights clampdown”, she told the Australian Associated Press last week.
“What we see in Russia today, as far as freedom of expression is concerned, is just devastating,” she said. “Every year it is just getting worse.”
“There is no sign that … persecution of religious minorities and foreign missionaries is coming to an end.”
However, she said the World Cup may at least shine a light on the abuses: “Russia being in the spotlight, so many fans coming from all around the world, so many media publications… It’s all going to make people focus on the profound human rights crisis in Russia.”
Among the challenges facing Russians is the clampdown on religious freedom since the introduction two years ago of the so-called “anti-missionary law”.
Under this law, prosecuted individuals face heavy fines, up to six years in prison, and, for foreigners, deportation.
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