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“We Fear for the Safety of Our Colleagues in the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society…” Russian Human Rights Organization Threatened

Vienna, 19 March 2005. A legal and media campaign against the Russian Chechen Friendship Society (RCFS) has escalated to a point where the members of this human rights organization, which received the 2004 Recognition Award of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF), face physical danger. The IHF is appealing to the Russian authorities and media in Nizhny Novgorod to end their campaign of legal harassment, intimidation and media smears against the RCFS members, and to protect them from [threats of] violence by nationalist groups.

“We fear for the safety of our colleagues in the Russian Chechen Friendship Society. We appeal to the Russian authorities to afford them protection, not harassment. We appeal to Russia’s partners in the international community to engage on behalf of human rights defenders in this organization, who are facing grave threats because of their fidelity to human rights principles,“ stated Aaron Rhodes, IHF Executive Director.

Threats by a Group Identifying Itself as the “Young Patriotic Front”

A media campaign associating the human rights organisation with Chechen terrorism is apparently coordinated with the work of a group acting under the name of the “Young Patriotic Front”.

On 14 March, one of the main editors of the RCFS, Oksana Chelysheva, found a leaflet at the entrance of the house where she lives. This leaflet contained an appeal to the citizens of Nizhny Novgorod:

" The 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 is perishing. But there are "beasts" among us that are profiting from the tragedies afflicting the majority, from the enormous and unique grief any person feels who loses loved ones. These people live among us, they look like regular law-abiding citizen, but they support terrorist activities carried out by Chechen rebels, receive money from them and offer them all kinds of help.
One of them lives among you, "Chechen (Editor: Insult deleted)" OKSANA CHELYSHEVA (Editor: here follows her address) She deserves shame and contempt! We are ready to fight her."

Media Campaign

Local media have tried to associate the work of the group to Chechen terrorism. On 29 January 2005, the internet news agency of Nizhny Novgorod, APN, published an article on its web-site with the title “Freedom fighters or helpers of terrorists?” (http://www.apn-nn.ru/pub_s/126.html), in which legal experts accused the RCFS of open complicity with Chechen insurgents and warned that their activities in Nizhny Novgorod are dangerous for its inhabitants. According to the article, “the existence of the RCFS in the Nizhny Novgorod area creates a risk for its inhabitants because the fact that this organization communicates with Chechen insurgents makes it possible for the latter mentioned to gather information about the region. Representatives of the RCFS work in the interest of illegal armed formations.”

On 12 March 2005, several local Nizhny Novgorod television channels, including RTR, aired a five-minute report, which claimed that the activities of the RCFS and its newspaper “Pravozashchita” (“Human Rights Defense”) are connected with Chechen rebels. In particular, the commentator declared that “at the beginning of the war, texts published in the newspaper Pravozashchita were not written by employees of this newspaper but by Udugov’s people.” Movladi Udugov is a prominent Chechen field commander.

Intimidating, politically motivated legal assault

Russian authorities have mounted a legal assault on the RCFS and Pravozashchita. The chair of RCFS, Stanislav Dimitrievsky, risks a five-year prison term on charges of “publicly inciting a forceful change of the constitutional order of the Russian Federation” under Article 280, part 2, of the Russian Criminal Code. He is yet to be formally charged. In the course of the investigation, the Chechen branch of the FSB has also interrogated the eight associates (reporters) of the newspaper who work in Chechnya. Two of them felt so intimidated by the FSB interrogation that they quit their job immediately afterward.

At the same time, the main offices of the RCFS and the Nizhny Novgorod Society for Human Rights (NSHR), who jointly publish the Pravozashchita newspaper, have been subjected to further “bureaucratic pressure”. On 28 February 2005, the registration service of the Ministry of Justice’s Nizhny Novgorod office initiated an off-schedule control of the RCFS and the NSHR, although the last regular control was implemented as late as in July 2004. During the control, Ministry of Justice officials also requested documents that they are not entitled to seize according to the federal law “On Public Organizations”. The two NGOs refused to comply with these unlawful demands, which the Ministry of Justice officials interpreted as an administrative offence. Later on, the local tax inspection office also made a control of the RCFS.

The IHF has already expressed its concerns about the questioning on 20 January of Stanislav Dimitrievsky, the editor-in-chief of the RCSF Pravozashchita newspaper, and the following search conducted by the local FSB in the RCSF offices. During this search, issues of the newspaper, the newspaper’s statute and registration documents; internal regulations and labor contracts, including those of the newspaper’s correspondents in the Chechen Republic, were seized.

Conclusion

Given the circumstances of this case, there are grounds to believe that the legal persecution and “bureaucratic pressure” experienced by the RCFS have been deliberately implemented by the Russian authorities for the purpose of hindering the activities of this organization. The IHF is concerned that the safety of the RCFS employees both in Nizhny Novgorod and in the Chechen Republic is severely endangered.

Source: IHF

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