We Expect the EU to Start Acting to Support Civil Society of Russia

On the eve of the new round of EU-Russia consultations on human rights, which will take place in Slovenia on 17 April 2008 we call on the EU to use this event as an opportunity to demand concrete measures by Russian authorities to improve the situation of Russian civil society.
Under the current established authoritarian regime ctizens of the Russian Federation have been deprived of almost all civil and political rights. Freedom of speech has been curtailed and supressed. Russia has been turned into an authoritarian state with just a faked facade of federalism. Instead of searching for peaceful resolutions of conflicts, Putin has plunged Russia into extreme violence in the Northern Caucasus. It has become a tool that the Kremlin used throughout Putin's rule to manipulate public opinion both in and outside the country and to intimidate the world with the threat of terrorism.

Freedom of speech in Russia has been curtailed to the size of a poppy seed. Political prisoners are becoming a common reality: Mikhail Khodorkovskiy and the Yukos prisoners; scientists accused of espionage; Muslims, many of whom have been accused of supporting extremism only because they practice their religion; people in Russian cities who dare to take to the streets in hope that their voice will be heard. They are being beaten up by police batons. The last case took place in Moscow on April 11 when some four hundred people held a rally to protest police brutality. It followed events that took place on April 4 in Moscow, when police from the Sokolniki police station had assualted a group of young people and subjected them to ill-treatment and torture in the police station. It is not the only case of unmotivated violence bythe police. On April 14, actions of protest were held in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. People brought flowers to protest the severe injuries suffered by Alexander Kisilyov during the March of Dissent in April 2007 in Moscow. His spine was broken and his head smashed. The crime remains unaccouted for... The violent dispersals of the Marches of Dissent is emblematic in understanding the true face of Russia under the authoritarian regime imposed upon us.

Those Russians who dare to speak out inside Russia, who dare to take to streets as the only possibility to have their voices heard are being taken into custody. They are being charged with absurd accusations of assaulting the police force. They are being subjected to enforced psychiatric treatment.

The last two electoral campaigns in Russia, both parliamentary and presidential, were nothing but a mockery. The main purpose of our elections has been to secure the authoritarian regime that is being created in Russia.

The regime of Russian president Vladimir Putin now labels any dissent as "extremism". Prosecutors have launched investigations and brought criminal charges in cases of alleged extremism throughout Russia. The Supreme Court has banned two groups convicted on charges of extremism: The Nizhny Novgorod-based Russian-Chechen Friendship Society (RCFS) was declared extremist in January 2007; in April 2007, the Court banned Eduard Limonov's National Bolshevik Party (NBP) under similar charges. Both groups have appealed the rulings to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

Since then, there have been several attempts to target various groups and individuals with charges of extremism. The most recent examples include the Voice of Beslan, which represents victims of the terrorist attack in Beslan, North Ossetia. The organisation has pushed for a transparent, fair, and serious investigation into what really happened in Beslan in September 2004.

The Chechen Committee of National Salvation (CCNS), a human rights organisation chaired by Ruslan Badalov, which still operates in the capital of Ingushetia, Nazran, is another expample of misusing the anti-extremist legislation. In August 2007, the Federal Registration Department began inspecting the activities of the CCNS, following a statement by the FSB that its Ingush branch had obtained information that the organisation received funding from foreign extremist groups.

"Under the cover of human rights work, the Chechen Committee of National Salvation pursues objectives that differ from its statute. The organisation collects negative information about the social, economic, and political situation in Ingushetia; the information is then published on the web site of ingushetiya.ru in a deliberately distorted form," the FSB claimed.

On 8 April 2008, Nikolay Patrushev, head of the FSB, accused foreign NGOs of colluding with terrorists inside Russia. Presiding over a meeting of the National Anti-Terrorism Council (NAC), Patrushev said international terrorists recruit young people in Russia's North Caucasus and other regions with the support of foreign NGOs, taking advantage of the social and economic problems as well as ethnic and religious tensions in the area. "Certain foreign NGOs provide support in spreading information on behalf of terrorists," Patrushev said.

The FSB chief said that terrorism needs to be rooted out not only by means of force but by suppressing its ideology as well.

Alexander Torshin, deputy speaker of the upper chamber of the Russian Parliament, the Federation Council echoed Patrushev in accusing foreign NGOs of "providing platforms for recruiting terrorists and extremists." In Torshin's words, "hundreds of anti-Russian propaganda events — conferences, meetings, and seminars — are held every year in many European countries, including Poland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Turkey, some other Scandinavian and Baltic states." The governments in these countries use the events to gain access to Russian regions, the senator concluded. He counted 59 foreign NGOs supporting Chechen terrorists.

Another FSB representative said the Interfax News Agency that the Supreme Court had declared 17 organisations operating within the Russian Federation as extremist on 14 February 2003 and 2 June 2006. Citing such organisations as Taliban, Islamic Group, and Muslim Brotherhood, he did not fail to mention the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society in the same list.  We call on the EU to take all these facts into account and to demand that these tough questions be responded by Russia as the EU counterpart.

Marina Litvinovich, the chair of the Foundation to Support Victims of Terrorism (Moscow)
Oksana Chelysheva, the director of the Foundation to Promote Tolerance (Nizhny Novgorod)
Ruslan Badalov, the chair of the Chechen Committee of National Salvation (Nasran, Ingushetia)
Stanislaw Dmitrievsky, the chair of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society (Finland)
Ella Kesaeva, co-chair of the "Voice of Beslan" public association