Human Rights
Dail Éireann — 2024-01-25
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Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

I commend the Deputy on raising it because the level of repression in Russia is extraordinary yet it does not excite the public anger in this country that it should. Civil society is shut down, media is suppressed and no one can speak out against the leadership. Politicians are arrested and lawyers defending people are arrested and just put into jail. That is why there was an exodus from Russia of many people of a liberal disposition. They simply got out of Russia, which is doubly depressing in that it copper-fastens the regime and the absence of any articulation of issues that might be contrary to the views of the President of Russia. That is what makes its invasion of Ukraine more sensitive and why the people of Lithuania and Latvia see this as an existential issue.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2024-01-25/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:52:35+00:00
Sitting date: 2024-01-25