Two accredited NGOs call the attention of the Human Rights Council to Prosecutor Arrigo’s questionable campaign against the Russian dissident in Argentina.
by Massimo Introvigne
Two NGOs that have followed the case of Konstantin Rudnev have returned to the United Nations Human Rights Council with a new written statement, this time focusing on protecting procedural guarantees in Argentina. Citoyens en action pour la démocratie et le développement (CADD) and Coordination des associations et des particuliers pour la liberté de conscience (CAP‑LC), both in special consultative status with ECOSOC, have submitted a text for the sixty‑third session of the Council, to be held in Geneva from 7 September to 9 October 2026, under agenda item 4 on situations that require the Council’s attention.
The statement recalls that Rudnev, a Russian dissident and spiritual teacher, is currently under arrest in Argentina and recovering from surgery and hospitalization. It notes that medical prescriptions require “strict bed rest and continuous assistance”. It warns that “any measure that would send him back to prison would expose him to risks that authorities charged with protecting fundamental rights cannot overlook.” His condition is described as fragile, and the danger to his life as concrete. In this context, the NGOs worry that judicial maneuvers may again send him to jail if they are not stopped in time.
The document’s core is a detailed criticism of a recent decision by the Federal Chamber of Criminal Cassation. The Chamber has agreed to examine and has granted a complaint lodged by the prosecution against the ruling that replaced pretrial detention with house arrest. According to CADD and CAP‑LC, this is incompatible with the architecture of the new Federal Code of Criminal Procedure (CPPF). The statement explains that the CPPF, through provisions including articles 53, 54, and 350, assigns decisions taken during the preliminary investigation stage—such as those concerning coercive measures—to judges with review functions and “exclude[s] them from the jurisdiction of the Cassation Court.” This design, the NGOs argue, was meant to avoid endless disputes over preventive measures and to preserve the presumption of innocence.
By entertaining and granting the prosecutorial complaint, the Cassation Court has, in the view of the NGOs, opened “a procedural avenue… that the CPPF does not foresee,” thereby exposing a defendant in a delicate medical condition “once again… to the possibility of incarceration.” The appeal filed by Rudnev’s lawyer, as summarized in the statement, describes how “a complaint without legal basis was declared admissible,” how the intervention conflicts with the CPPF and with Supreme Court jurisprudence on coercive measures, and how the ruling “lacks adequate reasoning and fails to respect constitutional and conventional guarantees, including the right to an effective remedy.”
Download the full written statement in PDF.
The text invokes international law as an additional framework. The text recalls that article 14.2 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) sets out safeguards for a fair and impartial trial. Article 14.5 protects the right to have a conviction and sentence reviewed by a higher tribunal. These provisions, the NGOs insist, form part of broader due process protections and require remedies that are genuinely available and judicial decisions that remain within procedural limits. Argentina has incorporated the ICCPR into its constitutional order, and its courts must apply it. When cassation review extends beyond the limits set by domestic law, the system’s consistency is called into question.
The statement also points to what it calls an institutional practice affecting the balance of the criminal justice system. It mentions Prosecutor Fernando Arrigo, whose attitude in the case has been examined by international scholars and who “concluded that it borders on a special obsession for this defendant and the ‘cult’ he allegedly leads.” According to CADD and CAP‑LC, Arrigo, both in this and in other cases, has assumed a role that goes beyond the functions normally associated with his office, indicating to judges “how the Criminal Code should be read and how its limits may be set aside.” This, they argue, alters the relationship between prosecution and judiciary, places prosecutorial strategy above the wording of the law, and creates an environment in which procedural guarantees risk losing their effectiveness.
In its concluding paragraphs, the statement “respectfully invites the Government of Argentina and the competent judicial authorities to ensure that the CPPF is applied according to its own terms and that the jurisdictional boundaries it establishes are respected.” Appeals that the code does not authorize “should not be used to prolong or intensify coercive measures.” Decisions on Rudnev’s situation should take full account of his medical condition and “avoid any return to prison that his health cannot sustain.” The NGOs insist that the case demonstrates how the protection of legality and human rights depends on the consistent application of domestic procedural safeguards and of international commitments, and that the ICCPR “provides the necessary framework” to guarantee that Rudnev’s rights are effectively protected and “that further injustice is prevented.”
With this new intervention in Geneva, CADD and CAP‑LC signal that the Rudnev case is no longer only about the treatment of a single defendant, but about the way in which Argentina’s criminal procedure and its international obligations interact. The Human Rights Council will now have before it not just allegations of transnational repression and inhumane detention, but a detailed warning that the very mechanisms designed to protect due process may be at risk of being bypassed.
Massimo Introvigne (born June 14, 1955 in Rome) is an Italian sociologist of religions. He is the founder and managing director of the Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR), an international network of scholars who study new religious movements. Introvigne is the author of some 70 books and more than 100 articles in the field of sociology of religion. He was the main author of the Enciclopedia delle religioni in Italia (Encyclopedia of Religions in Italy). He is a member of the editorial board for the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion and of the executive board of University of California Press’ Nova Religio. From January 5 to December 31, 2011, he has served as the “Representative on combating racism, xenophobia and discrimination, with a special focus on discrimination against Christians and members of other religions” of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). From 2012 to 2015 he served as chairperson of the Observatory of Religious Liberty, instituted by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to monitor problems of religious liberty on a worldwide scale.
