Opinions & Ideas

It seems that we will divide contemporary history into a time of before and a time of after the corona crisis. While the coronavirus is breaking up borders — of any kind — at an incredible speed, national states are closing their physical borders at an equally incredible speed. Even [...]

The first law that marked the beginning of the strict regulation of the internet in Russia will soon be seven and a half years old. Since then, dozens of new legal acts have appeared in our country, which have introduced new negative norms in relation to our digital rights or [...]

That ever-useful distinction between ‘ideologues’ (crudely, those who put ideas before people, whatever their motives) and ‘pragmatists’ (those who put people’s needs before ideas) seems nowhere more relevant than in Britain today. The UK has proved a perfect environment for ideologues whose chief idea - Brexit - reflects (but only [...]

Although HIV/AIDS affects the whole of society, it will be impossible to stop the epidemic without large-scale programmes for prevention, diagnosis and treatment for the key populations. Aleksey Lakhov, deputy director of the St. Petersburg charity foundation Humanitarian Action, writes about the current state of HIV prevention in Russia.

On 29 November, a new round of protests organised by the Fridays for Future movement took place in different cities all over the world. On behalf of the Solidarity group of the EU-Russia Civil Society Forum, Anna Fomina, a lawyer from St. Petersburg specializing on climate issues, and Anna Wågen, intern at the Forum, observed the climate strike in Berlin.

Last weekend, on 16 November 2019, dissatisfied citizens gathered for large-scale demonstrations all over the Czech Republic, demanding the resignation of the sitting Prime Minister Andrej Babiš. The biggest demonstration took place in Prague, where about 300 000 people took to the streets. As a part of the Forum Solidarity Group’s mission, the Russian activists Evgenia Kulakova (St. Petersburg Memorial) and Miroslav Mishinov (Movement of Сonscientious Objectors to Military Service, St. Petersburg) came to observe how the Czech citizens exercise their right to peaceful assembly.