ORChD editor Chelysheva subjected to personal threatsPRESS-RELEASE #1208 FROM MARCH 15, 2005
Editor of IC RCFS Oksana Chelysheva subjected to personal threats
On March 14, 2005, around 8 p.m. in the area around apartment buildings 12, 14, and 16 on Iyulskikh Dney street in the city of Nizhni Novgorod, unknown individuals distributed flyers, which contained slanderous claims, insults, and direct threats, and which displayed the address of Oksana Anatol'evna Chelysheva, editor of the Information Center of the inter-regional non-governmental organization “Russian-Chechen Friendship Society”. The flyers, which were printed on thin, yellowed paper in A4 format were distributed in the mailboxes of residents in apartment buildings 12, 14, and 16 on Iyulskikh Dney street, and were also posted with tape on the doorways of the apartment buildings. Chelisheva lives in one of the aforementioned buildings.
The text of the flyer reads as follows:
“Young Patriotic Front (A.P. Ivanov)
Dear fellow citizens! The whole world has tired of terrorists, parents fear for their children. Our country is suffering one tragedy after another, our sons and daughters are perishing; the young generation which is the future of our country. But there are “beasts” among us that are profiting from the tragedies brought on the majority, from the enormous and unique grief any person feels who loses near ones. These people live among us, they look like regular law-abiding citizens, but support terrorist activities carried out by Chechen rebels, receive money from them and offer them all kinds of help.
One of them live among you, “Chechen whore”
OKSANA CHELYSHEVA
(here follows the address of Oksana Chelysheva)
She is shameful and contemptible!
We are ready to fight her”
Today after 2 p.m. Oksana Chelysheva and Executive director of RCFS Stanislav Dmitrievskiy will submit a complaint to the Nizhni Novgorod region prosecutor. In the complaint the human rights activists state:
“We consider the individuals who printed and distributed the present flyer to have, at a minimum, committed crimes in accordance with paragraph 3, article 129 in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (slander associated with accusations of completely and fundamentally grave criminal acts), article 137 in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (violation of right to privacy), and article 213 in the Criminal Code (hooliganism).
We also believe that this act was committed with the aim to hinder the legal activities of the inter-regional non-governmental organization “Russian-Chechen Friendship Society” by intimidating one of its leaders. In light of the case brought by the regional prosecutor on January 11 in relation to the publication in the paper “Pravo-Zashchito” of two appeals made by Aslan Maskhadov and Akhmed Zakaev for peaceful negotiations in the Russian-Chechen conflict; and in light of the audit of our organization, carried out by the tax inspector and the administrative head of the ministry of justice in the Nizhni Novgorod region, we have reasons to believe that the distribution of this flyer is part of a general scheme to impede the organization's activities realized by the governmental agencies of the Russian state.
Oksana Chelysheva's address was known only by a limited number of people, including officials from the Federal Security Service in Nizhni Novgorod region who seized documents from the office of Russian-Chechen Friendship Society on January 20, 2005. We thus have reasons to assume that these criminal acts were committed by individuals with connections to the Nizhni Novgorod FSB.
The human rights activists intend to ask the prosecutor to open a criminal case based on these facts. At the same time, in Stanislav Dmitrievskiy's view, “there is little hope that this case will be investigated or the perpetrators found”.
As has been reported earlier, on January 11, 2005, the Nizhni Novgorod province prosecutor opened a criminal case based on the second paragraph, article 280 in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (public incitement to carry out acts of extremism) regarding the publication in the paper "Pravo-Zashchita" of two statements by Aslan Maskhadov and Akmed Zakaev appealing for peaceful negotiations in the Russian-Chechen conflict. The investigation is being conducted by the Nizhni Novgorod province FSB. "Pravo-Zashchita" is jointly published by IC RCFS and the Nizhny Novgorod Society for Human Rights. On January 20 the editor in chief of the publication Stanislav Dmitrievskiy was called as a witness in the case, and documents were seized in the joint offices of the two organizations, in particular the employee contracts of people working in Chechnya. In the past days the FSB has interrogated a number of other workers at IC RCFS. Earlier, since March 1, the FSB have called for questioning present and former workers for the information center; namely Khedi Idalova, Minkail Ezhiev, Kilab Ezhiev, Zurani Kuzumova (Grozniy FSB), Vokazu Khalitov (Gudermesskiy FSB), and Zelimkhan Islamov (Shalinskiy FSB) and Petimat Tokaeva (Achkhoy-Martanovskiy FSB). In March the tax inspector and the administrative head of the ministry of justice in the Nizhni Novgorod region simultaneously initiated audits of the activities of RCFS. The justice department audited the organization in July 2004 and did then not find any violations of the law.
Source: ORChD
(The text was not edited by Prague Watchdog, except for the headline).
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