VILNIUS: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton suggested Russia's elections were neither free nor fair as she made a broad plea on Tuesday for digital freedoms at a European security gathering.
Speaking to ministers of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, she also accused Belarus of "unremitting persecution" of its opposition and suggested Ukraine prosecuted ex-premier Yulia Tymoshenko for political reasons.
For a second day running, Clinton cited "serious concerns" about the elections in which Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's parliamentary majority was slashed in a vote marred by accusations of ballot-stuffing and other irregularities.
"When authorities fail to prosecute those who attack people for exercising their rights or exposing abuses, they subvert justice and undermine the people's confidence in their governments," Clinton said in a speech at the meeting of the 56-nation OSCE, Europe's biggest rights watchdog.
"As we have seen in many places, and most recently in the Duma elections in Russia, elections that are neither free nor fair have the same effect," she added, in comments that went a step further than her criticism of the vote on Monday.
Clinton said two former presidential candidates in Belarus remain imprisoned a year after a government crackdown and she voiced concern about the case of Ukraine's Tymoshenko, who faces seven years in prison for abuse of office.
"There are growing restrictions on the exercise of fundamental rights through the OSCE region," she said.
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