If McCain gave some good examples of harsh treatment, I could give you a better answer. Russia has gone through a lot of growing pains following the collape of the Soviet Union as well as a switch from Communism to democracy. There will be a lot of ebb and flow as they work out their kinks.
Russia hasn't been moving towards a democracy in years. If anything, it is rapidly moving backwards. The political system has been eviscerated to the point there is now no credible opposition either in the federal Parliament or in the states. Elections are now largely fixed before they happen (and the gobernatorial elections have simply been abolished). The very idea of a change of power by electoral means is now considred ridiculous even by the whatever opposition that remains. There are no longer any independent electronic media, and the print media are only tolerated in as far as they remain only marginally read by the public. Prosecutions of minor political irritants are increasingly common. Russia now very much resembles Mexico under the good old PRI rule (pre-1990 style). If that is a democracy (or an evolving democracy), then you have a very broad definition of democracy.
