"Massive" Rights Threat In Russia

Poking around in OSM, which has got to be one of the coolest things going in the blogosphere, along with parent Pajamas Media, I found this:

"We, representatives of Russian human rights organizations, scholars, people of culture and politicians, note with concern that ongoing political processes in Russia clearly indicate that there is an actual threat of massive campaigns against people whose views differ from the official position, a return of arbitrariness and suppression of human rights."

Here's the entire UPI story. It's hard to imagine Russia would go back to the policies of the USSR, but Putin is hardly a human rights role model, so when 23 high-level people sign a statement like this, including "Soviet-era dissidents, human rights activists, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and former world chess champion Garry Kasparov," it's worth noting.