We have two covers this week. In our international editions we report on a new era of Russian repression. Alexei Navalny, Russia’s most famous political prisoner, has been incarcerated in Penal Colony No 2, one of the country’s harshest prisons, his organisation outlawed and his allies prosecuted or driven into exile. The country has more than twice as many political prisoners as it did at the end of the Soviet era. A third of the Russian government’s budget is spent on security and defence. Much of this is directed inwards, at the sort of people The Economist features this week in a documentary film: people who have had enough of Vladimir Putin and the corruption of his regime. The new repression is everyone’s business. Mr Putin is telling Russians that Western policy is designed to obliterate their way of life. In order to justify his crackdown at home, he builds in cold-war confrontation to his dealings with the West. Its leaders need to prepare for what comes next.
|
In our British edition we look at the spread of assisted dying worldwide. We first made the case in 2015 that freedom should include the right to choose the manner and timing of one’s own death, while cautioning that the practice should be monitored and regulated to avoid abuses. Assisted dying is now legal in one form or another in a dozen countries, and the trend seems likely to continue. Last week New Zealand enacted a euthanasia law after 65% of voters backed it in a referendum. The same week Portugal’s parliament passed a broader law. Assisted dying is still illegal in Britain, but the House of Lords is debating a bill to allow it. The spread of assisted dying is welcome, but the rules are often too restrictive. In some places only those with less than six months to live are allowed help to die. Patients can be terminally ill and in intense pain, but unless a doctor estimates that the end is very near, they cannot end their own suffering. No rules in this area are perfect. All should be subject to revision in the light of new evidence. But the principle that individuals are entitled to choose how they end their lives deserves to be upheld more widely.