When thinking about Russia, dictatorship pops into mind. Vladimir Putin, the current leader of Russia, has strict laws on who can come into his country. Currently Russia is involved with the Syrian war and sides with Bashar al-Assad, who is currently the leader in Syria and is fighting against his own people. Most countries including the United States and other European countries have taken in Syrian refugees. Russia has refused to take in any refugees no matter where they are from, including Syria. When looking at the demographics of the people of Russia, there is no record of any people from the African or Asian continents. Most of the people who make up Russia are born and raised in Russia, or of decent of countries that use to be part of the Solvent Union. While, Russia does have citizens that identify as Muslim, 6.5%, Russian Orthodox prevails all religions at 41% of the population.
While Russia did provide scholarships to over 300 Syrian students but again Russia pledged to not to set up resettling placements for any of the refugees.
Russia also has strict laws against same sex couples, not just marriage but just the act of having a same sex partner is enough reason for the government to throw a person in prison. People who go against the Russian government or even if another political party tries to run against the current president, they also could be thrown in prison. Russia is far behind in diversity and lack in the human rights department.
Russia: Failing to do Fair Share to Help Syrian Refugees. (2016, September 30). Retrieved from https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/09/14/russia-failing-do-fair-share-help-syrian-refugees
Russia Population 2018. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/russia-population/
Natalia Paternina says
Interesting read! It’s certainly still shocking to me how we can be in the 21st century and still have so many nations with issues of human rights violations. As you mentioned, the Russian government makes it virtually impossible for anyone to run against Putin, and if they do, they obviously have no chance of winning. I actually wrote the final paper on a similar topic, and something I found out was that despite all these negative connotations surrounding Putin, many Russians still support him and vote for him. The reason is mostly Russians see Putin (and the head of the state, in general) as an embodiment of Russian culture, and they also tend to think more as a collective unit than individual, like we usually do in western countries. All this just makes some Russians have blind trust in Putin and just be drawn to his apparent strength of character. Regardless, I do hope in the future the Russian people are able to elect someone who will be more just towards all the citizens (LGBTQ+ people, refugees, women, minorities, etc).