Civil society once more under attack in Nizhny Novgorod as it gathered in memory of Ms. Anna Politkovskaya

Indeed, a conference which was to be organised on October 5 and 6, 2007 by the Nizhny Novgorod Foundation to Promote Tolerance and the Nizhny Novgorod branch of Novaya Gazeta in memory of Ms. Anna Politkovskaya[1] had to be cancelled after the authorities blocked the funds of the Foundation that were aimed at the organisation of this event.

On October 5, 2007, the organisers of the conference were also informed that the room they had booked in the hotel Tsentralnzya in order to hold the press conference had been booked by someone else and that therefore the event had to be cancelled. In the end, the press conference could be organised in the offices of the Nizhny Novgorod Committee Against Torture. Besides, it is also to point out that hotel reservations for several guests were cancelled due notably to a purported water leak in their hotel.

Furthermore, on October 6, 2007, several representatives of international non-governmental organisations, namely Amnesty International, the League for Human Rights (Spain), and Human Rights First, who had come to Nizhny Novgorod in order to attend the above-mentioned conference, were briefly arrested at the offices of the Nizhny Novgorod Foundation to Promote Tolerance and brought to the offices of the Federal Migration Service in Nizhny Novgorod, where they were detained during more than four hours. Being accused of violating the Law on visa policy as they had entered the Russian Federation with tourist visas and communicated to private people, they had to pay fines from 3,000 to 5,000 roubles.

The police also arrested Mr. Stanislas Dmitrievsky, former Executive Director of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society (RCFS), who had refused to comply with a summon issued by the Prosecutor’s office in Nizhny Novgorod. He was released after being interrogated for two hours. Ms. Oksana Chelysheva, Director of the Nizhny Novgorod Foundation to Promote Tolerance[2], who also refused to comply with this summon, was not interrogated. However, Mr. Yury Staroverov, the Foundation’s system administrator, went to the Prosecutor’s office, therefore complying with the interrogation procedure.

Meanwhile, six policemen searched the offices of the Nizhny Novgorod Foundation to Promote Tolerance, seizing computers and software licensing documents. Ms. Oksana Chelysheva also reported that during the search of the office, one of the witnesses brought by the policemen pinpointed two CD-ROMs in a shelve that she had never seen before. The Observatory recalls that the Foundation had already been subjected to a search in August 2007, during which its computers had been seized[3].

The Observatory expresses its deepest concern regarding these new acts of harassment against civil society in Nizhny Novgorod, and in particular the Nizhny Novgorod Foundation to Promote Tolerance, which are further evidence of the determination of the Russian authorities to hinder the activities of human rights defenders.

As a consequence, the Observatory, recalling that the Russian Federation was elected to the Human Rights Council in June 2006 for three years and is committed, in this regard, to “uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights”[4], urges the Russian authorities to put an end to all acts of harassment against the Nizhny Novgorod Foundation to Support Tolerance as well as all NGOs and human rights defenders in the Russian Federation.

The Observatory also recalls that as a participating State of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the Russian Federation acknowledges that “the [1998] UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders [... places] a responsibility [...] on states to adopt and implement adequate legislation and administrative procedures that would provide for a conducive environment for human rights defenders to promote and strive for the protection and realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms at the national and international levels”, and recognises “the need for particular attention, support and protection for human rights defenders by the OSCE, its Institutions and field operations, as well as by participating States”[5].

Accordingly, the Observatory calls upon the Russian authorities to conform in any circumstances with international and regional human rights standards and instruments ratified by the Federation, including with the provisions of the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 9, 1998, in particular its Article 1, which states that “everyone has the right, individually and in association with others, to promote and to strive for the protection and realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms at the national and international levels”, as well as its Article 12.2, which provides that “the State shall take all necessary measures to ensure the protection by the competent authorities of everyone, individually or in association with others, against any violence, threats, retaliation, de facto or de jure adverse discrimination, pressure or any other arbitrary action as a consequence of his or her legitimate exercise of the rights referred to in the present Declaration”.

For further information, please contact:
OMCT : Anne-Laurence Lacroix, + 00 41 22 809 49 39
FIDH : Gael Grilhot, + 00 33 1 43 55 25 18

[1] Ms. Politkovskaya, a journalist with the Russian biweekly newspaper Novaya Gazeta, was assassinated on October 7, 2006. See Observatory Annual Report 2006.

[2] The Nizhny-Novgorod Foundation to Promote Tolerance is the name under which the RCFS reconstituted itself after its definitive closure in January 2007, following a decision by the Supreme Court, upholding the decision of the Regional Court of Nizhny-Novgorod to close down the RCFS on the ground that Mr. Dmitrievsky had been sentenced to a two-year suspended prison sentence for “incitation to national hatred” in February 2006. Consequently, the organisation was forced to cease its activities. It has since reconstituted itself as three new organisations, including the Nizhny-Novgorod Foundation to Support Tolerance, and moved its legal entity to Finland. Since then, official pressure on RCFS’s former leaders to discontinue their human rights activities has continued unabated. In particular, they have been subjected to heavy police surveillance, and uninvited visitors have presented themselves at their residences.

[3] See Observatory Urgent Appeal RUS 007 / 0807 / OBS 105, issued on August 30, 2007.

[4] See OP9 of the UN General Assembly resolution A/RES/60/251.

[5] See OP 6 & OP 8 of the Resolution on Strengthening OSCE Engagement with Human Rights Defenders and National Human Rights Institutions, adopted by the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly on July 10, 2007.