Threats to Oksana Chelysheva - Provocations in the Sinister Traditions of the KGBPRESS-RELEASE #1209 FROM MARCH 15, 2005
STATEMENT FROM THE EDITOR IN CHIEF OF
THE RUSSIAN-CHECHEN FRIENDSHIP SOCIETY
Yesterday in Nizhni Novgorod, in the neighborhood where Oksana Chelysheva, editor of the Information Center for the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, lives, flyers with dirty slander, insults, and personal threats directed at Chelysheva, where distributed in the mailboxes and posted on the entrance ways (the full text of the flyer in our press release #1208 from March 15, 2005). The flyer, which was signed by a certain “Young Patriotic Front”, also included the address where Chelysheva lives.
Regarding this, the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society deems it necessary to state that it considers the latest provocation, which follows completely in the sinister traditions of the KGB, to be the latest step in the persecution of our organization. The pressure is being brought by organs of the Russian state with the aim of destroying the organization. We have no doubt that there is only one goal behind the criminal case against the RCFS publication “Pravo-Zashchita”, investigated by the FSB, the audits of our organization by the tax inspector and the department of justice, a wave of slanderous news broadcasts and articles in the Nizhni Novgorod media, and, finally, the attempt to intimidate one of our editors. We also have no doubt that all these acts are directed from one center, where the specters of Dzerzhinsk, Beria, and Andropov loom large. And it is of no significance whether the leaflets with the threats against Chelysheva where printed at the local FSB building or if their half-brained author, hiding behind the name of an unknown organization, was only inspired by the Chekist-prosecutor's televised products, whose muddy stream has filled the Nizhni Novgorod TV stations. We emphasize that the source of this squalid attempt, whether indirectly or directly linked to the state, its propagandists, or the power structure, reeks of Chekism. It is indicative that the earlier attempts to destroy the organization have gained renewed strength at this very time when RCFS have begun the work of establishing a professional information agency, which specializes in covering human rights issues in Chechnya. The present power in the Kremlin is engaged in a battle with truth, a battle to the death. And in its effort to silence the supporters of peace it is ready to go very far.
At the same time by resorting to such squalid and vulgar methods of pressure our opponents appear as hysterics. It is obvious that our organization's chosen strategy of openness and strict adherence to the law is making the secret agents furious. They prefer to operate in the dark, to hide behind non-existing “patriots”, and to appeal to the fears and primitive instincts of the masses. They are people, who in the words of Christ, “choose darkness over light, because they have done evil” (John 3:19-21).
Source: ORChD (T/B) |
