Human Rights in Russia Week-ending 25 September 2020 - with Aleksandr Cherkasov

This week our guest is Aleksandr Vladimirovich Cherkasov, chairof the board of Memorial Human Rights Centre. Aleksandr Vladimirovich is an 'engineer physicist' by education. He has been an activist with Memorial since 1989, and since 1991 he has worked at the Memorial Human Rights Centre, investigating the state of human rights and humanitarian law in various "hot spots", including Chechnya. Aleksandr Vladimirovich also investigated the events of 1993 in Moscow. During the first and second wars in Chechnya, he travelled dozens of times to combat zones to collect information and provide assistance to the victims of the conflict, searching for missing people, prisoners, kidnapped people and hostages. After the war between Russia and Georgia in August 2008 he repeatedly travelled to South Ossetia. We talked about all this and more about how Memorial has been affected by the law on foreign agents, about Natalia Estemirova, about Oyub Titiev, about Yury Dmitriev and about human rights in today's Russia and in the future.

Sergei Nikitin writes: It has long been noticed that among human rights defenders there are many natural scientists, including those from the physical sciences. And just as under the Soviet regime scientific articles often began with Lenin's quote "The electron is as inexhaustible as the atom", so now an interview with a human rights activist with a background in science often begins with the question that goes approximately like this: "What is it in physics that turns those who study the subject into human rights activists? Simon Cosgrove and I began our conversation with Aleksandr Cherkasov in the very same vein: traditions are great things, it is not for us to break them. I would like to point out that during the conversation Aleksandr particularly emphasised the fact that he is a 'physics engineer' who is as far from being a physicist as the courtier is from the Sovereign. Perhaps this is true. But Sasha's storytelling is phenomenal, and he has much to tell. Apart from the fact that he has been involved in many things, remembers the smallest details, names and dates, he delights with his special view of events, his analysis and understanding of what is going on around him. And although Aleksandr insists that "we don't understand what's going on", stressing that this is the beauty of our world, he seems to understand a very great deal, noting that "Physics gives us reason to be optimistic under conditions of unpredictability and incomplete information," urging us to simply live in a world that is unpredictable and so beautiful. Listen to Aleksandr Cherkasov.

The podcast is in the Russian language. You can also listen to this podcast via our website (https://rightsinrussia.org/podcasts) on SoundCloud (https://soundcloud.com/rightsinrussia) and on Spotify (open.spotify.com/show/7HdmvhzC2P6VQS8ijICNHZ) and Itunes (podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/simo...ei/id1495261418).

The music is from Stravinsky's Elegy for Solo Viola, performed by Karolina Herrera.