Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders Annual Report 2002 - Russian Federation

International Federation for Human Rights, Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders Annual Report 2002 - Russian Federation, 26 March 2003, https://www.refworld.org/reference/annualreport/ifhr/2003/en/60381 [accessed 21 January 2025]
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Mr. Grigory Pasko convicted38

On 25th June 2002, the Military Chamber of the Moscow Supreme Court confirmed the sentence on Mr. Grigory Pasko, military correspondent of the Russian Pacific fleet newspaper Boevaya Vakhta: four years' imprisonment and loss of his military grade, for high treason. This sentence confirmed the appeal decision by the Vladivostok Military Tribunal on 25th December 2001, after which he had been placed in detention. These events were connected with a Japanese broadcast in November 1997 of a report by Mr. Pasko on the dumping of nuclear waste in the Sea of Japan, and his articles on pollution from the ship cemeteries and the promotion of certain generals. At that time he was arrested for revealing "defence secrets". In July 1999, he had been given a three – year prison sentence for abuse of his military office and the high treason charge was dropped. Having already served two-thirds of his sentence, he was released under the law on amnesty for "short sentences". However, the secret service (FSB) and Mr. Pasko both appealed to the Vladivostok Military Tribunal. After several adjournments and postponements, the appeal hearings had run between 11th July and 25th December 2001.

On 10th September 2002, he was transferred from the Vladivostok detention centre to Labour Camp 41 in Ussuriysk, where he works in a carpentry workshop. On 25th December he had completed two-thirds of his sentence and was eligible for parole under Russian law, but no move was made.

Attack on NGO premises39

On 18th July 2002, an armed group of soldiers wearing no distinctive insignia attacked premises of the Russian NGO Memorial in Grozny, capital of the Chechen Republic. The soldiers broke open the door and started to destroy the equipment. Memorial lodged a complaint but they were told it had merely been a routine check.

Earlier in 2002 Memorial had helped set up a dialogue between the military and the Federal administration. A few days before the attack, Memorial had made a public declaration denouncing the lack of co-operation by both parties, and announced that it was ceasing all collaboration with the Federal forces.

Memorial has also been the target of slander over its participation in a conference organised by several Russian NGOs on 9th and 10th November 2002, entitled "For an end to the war and the re-establishment of peace in Chechnya". The televisions stations ORT and Vesti, which have links with the government, called Memorial's activities "anti-patriotic" and "cynical" and said they played into the terrorists' hands. It is rare for independent NGOs investigating the human rights situation in Chechnya to gain access to the media so that they can publicise their findings. When they do, they are denigrated and shown in a discriminatory light. In November for example, the newspaper Tchas Pik published an article in which the Soldiers' Mothers Organisation of St Petersburg explained its positions against the war in Chechnya and the abuses of President Putin; but alongside the article was a column entitled "Unanswered questions" which included such pernicious questions as "How can an organisation that depends on foreign sponsors speak in the name of the Russian people?" and "Why do the Soldiers' Mothers use unreliable information?".

Journalist's work obstructed40

In February 2001, Mrs. Anna Politkovskaia, a Russian journalist with the weekly Novaia Gazetta, known for its investigations into the war in Chechnya, was arrested and deported from Chechnya by Russian forces. In Moscow in September she received death threats and was compelled to go into temporary exile. She returned to Russia in early 2002, as the death threats had ceased. On 9th February 2002, she was again arrested in Chechnya by the Russian army, for violation of the accreditation procedures, but managed to escape the following day. Mrs. Politkovskaia has received an award from the American journalists' club for her reporting on the Chechen Republic.

[Refworld note: This report as posted on the FIDH website (www.fidh.org) was in pdf format with country chapters run together by region. Footnote numbers have been retained here, so do not necessarily begin at 1.]

38. See Urgent Appeal RUS 001/0602/OBS/038.

39. See Urgent Appeal RUS 002/0702/OBS 046.

40. See Annual Report 2001.

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