Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders Annual Report 2005 - Russian Federation

Restrictive legislation²⁸

On 18 November 2005, a draft law entitled "Amendments to some federal laws of the Russian Federation" was presented before the Lower House of Parliament (Duma) by the Parliamentary Committee on religious and associative organisations, presided by Mr. Popov, a member of the United Russia Party (ruling party). On 23 November 2005, the text was adopted by Parliament in first reading, in spite of the faults found in it by Mrs. Pamfilova, president of the Civil Society Institutions and Human Rights Council under the President of the Republic, and Mr. Vladimir Loukine, Commissioner on Human Rights in Russia.

This law amends three laws: the Federal Law No. 7 of 12 January 1996, on non-profit making organisations (Law on NKOs – O Nekommercheskih Organizatsijah), the Federal Law No. 82 of 19 May 1995 on public associations, and the Law of 14 July 1992 on closed territorial administrative entities.²⁹ It addresses all non-profit organisations, including those working on the protection and defence of human rights.

On 8 December 2005, under national and international pressure, several round tables were held by the Parliamentary Committee for the Affairs of Religious and Voluntary organisations, the legislation Committee of the Duma and the Property Committee, bringing together Russian and foreign NGOs, the Civil Chamber of the Russian Federation and the Council for the development of civil society and the voluntary sector. On that occasion, Mr. Popov stated that the only purpose of the draft amendments was to protect the Russian Federation "against the activity of foreign politics".

The second reading of the draft amendments, initially scheduled for 6 December 2005, was postponed until 16, then 21 December 2005.

Even though several restrictive provisions were withdrawn from the bill, the law, as adopted in the third reading on 23 December 2005, remains in blatant violation of the right of freedom of association.

On 17 January 2006, the law was published in the Official Journal after being signed by the President of the Republic and it will come into force on 10 April 2006.

Registration of NGOs

– Amendment No.1 to the Law on closed territorial administrative entities prohibits NGOs whose founder members are foreigners, stateless persons, foreign organisations or foreign NGOs, including those who represent foreign branches of NGOs operating in Russia, from establishing or operating in these territories.

– Amendment 3§5 to Article 15 of the Federal Law on NKOs and amendment 2§3 to Article 19 of the Federal Law on public associations stipulate that foreign nationals or stateless persons who do not hold permanent resident status cannot found nor belong to an organisation. This provision is also valid for any foreign national or stateless person whose presence is considered "undesirable", in accordance with a decision taken by the authorities.

– Furthermore, amendment 4 to Article 21 of the Law on public associations states that "the decision to register a representative office of a foreign NGO can only be taken by the State registration body". Such a decision will be based on other documents related to the NGO in question, in particular its statutes and many other documents, supplied in the original language and supported by a bailiff certified translation.

– Amendment 6 to Article 23 of the Law on Public Associations broadens the reasons for refusal of registration. From now on, a request for registration of an organisation may be rejected "if the status of the organisation violates the Constitution or the legislation of the Russian Federation", "if the person who is presented as a founding member of the organisation may not be a founding member according to Article 19 of the Law" or "if the name of the organisation is an offence to morality or to the national and religious feelings of citizens".

– Amendment 3§9 to Article 23.1 of the Law on NKOs repeats these provisions and also provides reasons for refusal that are specific to sections of foreign NGOs, in particular "if the aims of creating the chapter create a threat to the sovereignty, political independence, territorial inviolability, national unity and uniqueness, to the cultural heritage and national interests of the Russian Federation", or "if an NGO section has previously been registered in the territory [...] and dismantled because of clear violation of the Constitution or of Russian legislation".

– Although amendment 6§4 specifically stipulates that organisations that already exist do not need to re-register, Article 6§5 states that representative bodies or chapters of foreign NGOs must, for information purposes, notify the authorities of their existence within six months of the Law coming into force. Beyond this period, associations that have not carried out this procedure must cease their activities.

Monitoring of NGOs' activities

– Amendment 2§8 to Article 38 of the Law on NKOs stipulates that the "State registration body in charge of vetting registration applications from organisations shall also monitor their activities and funding, and shall have access to all the organisations financial papers". Hitherto, access to such papers required a prior request from the Prokuratura,³⁰ the police or the Tax Inspectorate. Furthermore, the representatives of the State registration body may take part in all the activities of the organisations, be they internal or public, and shall conduct, at least once a year, an audit to check activities against the aims as set forth in the statutes. Should the statutes not be in compliance, the registration body shall serve a justified warning in writing, and the organisations shall have at least one month to comply with their statutes. An appeal can be made against this written warning. This amendment also stipulates that the health, epidemiological and fire services or any other State service may verify the charities compliance with rules and standards.

– Amendment 3§10 to Article 32 of the Law on NKOs stipulates that the organisation shall "transmit each year before 1 March a report on the activities, on the implementation of tasks and on the use of funding in keeping with the statutes as filed, as well as the names of the board members to the Ministry of Justice". If the NGO section or representative does not transmit this information, the registration body may decide to disband it without a judicial procedure.

Dismantling of NGOs

– Amendment 2§7 to Article 23-1§5 of the Law on NKOs stipulates that repeated failure to supply financial and budgetary documents within the allotted time may constitute grounds for an application from the State registration body before the Court, to order the cessation of the organisation activities, its dismantling or its striking off from the legal entity register. These documents relate to, among other subjects, the amount of resources and other goods received by the association from international or foreign organisations, foreign or stateless persons, and the purpose for which they are intended to be spent or used.

– Amendment 2§9 adds a new paragraph to Article 44.1 of the Law on NKOs, which indicates that failure of an association to correct the infringements found within the deadlines may constitute grounds for a procedure initiated by the Public Prosecutor of the Russian Federation or the State registration body requiring dissolution.

– Amendment to article 33 to the Law on NKOs lists grounds for dissolution or cessation of activities of an organisation through a court procedure, namely: if the organisation undertakes extremist activities (no definition of such activities is provided), if it provides assistance in legalising illegally acquired funds, if it violates the rights and freedoms of citizens, if it commits repeated and serious violations of the Constitution, of federal laws or any other norms, or if the activities do not comply with the aims set forth in the statutes. The particular vagueness of these provisions may lead to an arbitrary interpretation.

Defamation campaign against independent NGOs³¹

On 7 May 2004, at a press conference on the situation of prisoners in Russia, General Valerii Kraev, head of the General Direction of Sentence Enforcement of the Ministry of Justice, had said that human rights NGOs were funded by "criminal groups" and aimed at destabilising the Ministry of Justice by disseminating false information.

He had also made a distinction between "good" and "bad" associations, and listed by name in this latter category the Amnesty International sections in Chelyabinsk and Ural, the Civil Information Initiative of Irkutsk, the All-Russian Public Movement for Human Rights (MDH) and the Committee of Support for Detainees. These statements, disseminated in the press, had followed the condemnation by these NGOs of the poor conditions of detention in Russian prisons. Mr. Lev Ponomarev, MDH chairman, had immediately filed a complaint against General Kraev for slander.

On 11 October 2005, the Moscow Civil Court announced there was no proof of slander by General Kraev against the organisation. Indeed, in the shorthand notes of the press conference produced in court, General Kraev's remarks against MDH did not appear. The journalists who had relayed these statements also confirmed that they had not kept their recordings. The Court, stating that "the information contained in the words published by the press did not correspond to the facts", concluded that the words published by the media had not been spoken by General Kraev. MDH decided not to appeal against this decision.

Direct attacks against several associations and their members

Saint Petersburg

Assault on Memorial's office³²

On 18 February 2005, unknown persons arrived at the Research Centre of the Memorial Saint Petersburg organisation, under the pretext of an urgent message from Memorial Moscow. When Mr. Emanuil Polyakov, an employee of the organisation, opened the door, three men rushed in and violently beat him, leaving him unconscious. He was found the next morning in a critical state and was immediately taken to hospital.

The assailants destroyed part of the office equipment, searched the archives and forced open the organisation's safes. The fact that they directly went to the office of Mrs. Irina Flige, director of the Research Centre, and that they later left by the back door, could indicate that they had a plan of the premises.

The police opened an investigation that, by the end of 2005, still had to be concluded.

Harassment of the Association of Soldiers' Mothers of Saint Petersburg³³

– Assault of the association's offices

During the night of 3 to 4 June 2005, the offices of the Association of Soldiers' Mothers of Saint Petersburg was burgled. Three telephones, a fax machine, a liquid crystal display, and two USB memory sticks containing information on the activities of the organisation were stolen. A video camera and tape-recorder that were in a safe were also taken.

On the morning of 4 June 2005, the police came to record the events and to block access to the premises where the organisation weekly meeting was to take place. Police officers took finger-prints of all the members of the organisation and tried to dissuade them from filing a complaint. In the police report of the same day, this theft was not mentioned. Some days later, the association's staff members discovered the passage used by the burglars, which linked to the cellar of the building. They phoned the police, which refused to return to the premises.

– Judicial proceedings

On 14 June 2003, Mr. Bukin, head of the Nachinov military school, had initiated proceedings against the Association of Soldiers' Mothers and the newspaper Smena, following the publication of information provided by the organisation on physical and psychological torture of pupils in the school. The case had continued in 2004, despite the fact that these acts had been acknowledged by Mr. Kuroedov, the Admiral of the Russian Fleet, and that the officers responsible had been punished.

On 21 June 2005, a hearing was held in the Kuibychev Court in Saint Petersburg, in the presence of chargés de mission appointed as part of an Observatory's fact-finding mission to the Russian Federation, from 18 to 23 June 2005. The hearing was first adjourned until 20 July 2005, then until 27 September 2005, while the investigation was still ongoing. On that date, the Court rejected Mr. Bukin's complaint.

In addition, at the request of the soldiers' mothers, an inquiry was to be opened in 2003 by the Prosecutor General on the accountability of Mr. Bukin for these crimes of torture. The Kuibychev Court had announced that the results of this inquiry would be known at the end of January 2005. However, by the end of 2005, the inquiry itself had not been opened yet.

– Judicial proceedings dropped against Mr. Sergei Mikhailov

In 2005, the charges against Mr. Sergei Mikhailov, an orthopaedic doctor working with the Association of Soldiers' Mothers as a medical expert, were dropped. On 17 July 2004, the Prosecutor for the Kalinin region of Saint Petersburg had opened an inquiry against Mr. Sergei Mikhailov for "complicity" in a desertion case.

Lack of results in the investigation into the murderof Mr. Nikolai Girenko³⁴

On 20 June 2004, Mr. Nikolai Girenko, chairman of the Minority Rights Commission of the Saint Petersburg Scientific Union and president of the Ethnic Minority Rights Association, was murdered at his home. This murder had been a reprisal for Mr. Girenko's work. He had participated, as an expert witness, in trials of far-right groups and skinheads in Saint Petersburg and other towns in Russia.

Since Mr. Girenko's murder, Mrs. Valentina Matvienko, mayor of Saint Petersburg, has regularly stated at numerous press conferences that this murder was a criminal act and had no political significance.

By the end of 2005, the inquiry, extended every two months, had not produced any results, though the investigator of the Prokuratura of Saint Petersburg maintained that it was "progressing". It is to be feared that the case could be suspended or closed for lack of new evidence.

Continued threats against Mrs. Stefania Koulaeva³⁵

In the days following the murder of Mr. Girenko, Mrs. Stefania Koulaeva, executive director of the Anti-Fascist Commission and head of the Northwest Russia Centre for Social and Legal Protection of Roma (Memorial Saint Petersburg), had received several death threats by telephone at her home. The authors of these threats had in particular alluded to Mr. Girenko's murder saying that this was "just a start" and that she was "next on the list". The following day, the door to her apartment had been covered with swastikas and Nazi symbols. By the end of 2005, the inquiry into these threats had not produced any results.

In addition, on 31 August 2005, Mrs. Koulaeva received insulting and anti-Semitic messages on her mobile phone.

Moscow

Sentencing of Mr. Yuri Samodorov and Mrs. Ludmila Vasilovskaya³⁶

Following a resolution of the State Duma dated 2 September 2003, the Moscow Prosecutor had initiated judicial proceedings against Mr. Yuri Samodorov, executive director of the Sakharov Museum, Mrs. Ludmila Vasilovskaya, in charge of the exhibition, and Mrs. Anna Mikhalchuk, one of the artists in the exhibition "Beware, religion", for contravening Article 282.2 of the Criminal Code ("incitement to racial, ethnic and religious hatred").

On 25 December 2003, the investigator of the Moscow Prokuratura, Mr. Yuri Tsvetkov, had also accused the artists and organisers of "attacking the dignity of certain religious groups".

On 28 March 2005, the Tagansk District Court in Moscow sentenced Mr. Yuri Samodurov and Mrs. Ludmila Vasilovskaya to a fine of 100,000 roubles each (approx. 3,000 euros), on the grounds that the exhibition was blasphemous and insulting to Christian believers, especially members of the Russian Orthodox Church, and that it had dangerous social consequences.

On 10 June 2005, the City of Moscow Court, after hearing the appeal by the lawyers for Mr. Samodurov and Mrs. Vasilovskaya, upheld the verdict of the First Instance Court.

Threats against Mr. Ruslan Linkov³⁷

In April 2005, Mr. Ruslan Linkov, a member of the association Democratic Russia and former parliamentary assistant to the democrat MP, Mrs. Galina Starovoitova, who was killed in Saint Petersburg in November 1998, was subjected to threats published on nationalist websites and on the news web page of the city of Saint Petersburg (rusprav.ru, zrd.spb.ru, derjava.ru). In the readers' chat column, some of them had written anonymously that "it [was] time that [Mr. Linkov] joined Mr. Girenko and Mrs. Galina Starovoitova and that he [was] next on the list". Other threats were published several times on the Rosbalt website, an official news site. Mr. Linkov contacted the police, but he had not received any protection by the end of 2005.

Ingushetia and Nizhny Novgorod regions

Assault on the Council of Non-Governmental Organisations³⁸

On 12 January 2005, hooded and armed men attacked the office of the Council of Non-Governmental Organisations in Nazran, Ingushetia. The seven people who were present in the office were threatened and forced to lie down on the floor or were pushed against a wall. Mr. Kyryl Chvedov, a member of the Ingush Department of the Federal Security Bureau (FSB), checked their identity papers and the Council's statutes, and made copies of them. The attackers took away two computers and asked Mrs. Taissa Isaeva, a Council member, to come the following day to the FSB office in Magas to collect them. Since this attack, the Council has moved and remains under constant surveillance.

Furthermore, on 18 May 2005, the official "Anti-terror" website published an article on the "activities of terrorist groups on the Internet".The Council of NGOs was described as a "separatist"organ, a classification punishable under Russian law.

Lastly, at the beginning of November 2005, Mr. Adlan Daudov, a member of the Commission for Refugees of the Council of NGOs, was visited by FSB agents who were hoping to obtain information on the organisation's activities. These agents said they had been informed that the Council was working for Western intelligence agencies.

Harassment of CCNS

– Abduction of Mr. Makhmut Chaparovich Magomadov³⁹

On 21 January 2005, Mr. Makhmut Chaparovich Magomadov, a lawyer, member of the Chechen Committee for National Salvation (CCNS) and an expert of the International Helsinki Federation in Northern Caucasus, was abducted while he was visiting Mr. Amirov, a Chechen citizen. Mr. Magomadov's wife and two children were with him. Chechen-speaking men, who were armed and disguised and had been following them in their car, entered Mr. Amirov's house and dragged Mr. Magomadov and one of his daughters outside. Mr. Magomadov was violently shoved into a car and then driven in the direction of Grozny. On 14 February 2005, information was published saying that Mr. Magomadov had been taken home without any explanation as to where he had been detained or as to the conditions of his detention.

– Judicial proceedings⁴⁰

On 2 August 2004, CCNS had been ordered to close down by the Ingushetia Prokuratura, which had also asked that several press releases on the human rights situation in Chechnya published by the association be examined so that their "extremist" nature could be ascertained.

On 25 October 2004, Mr. Ali Ozdoev, a judge and president of the Nazran Regional Court, had considered that the information disseminated by CCNS had not been of an extremist nature and that the proceedings instigated by the Prokuratura had been groundless.

On 10 February 2005, the Supreme Court for Civil Matters of Ingushetia held that the appeal filed by the Prokuratura against this decision was admissible, and sent the case back to the Nazran Regional Court, where the bench of judges had in the meantime been changed.

On 17 June 2005, the Prokuratura ordered the University of Ingushetia to carry out a psycho-linguistic assessment of the press releases, although CCNS had already provided the Court with the conclusions of legal and linguistic experts, which the judge had refused to include in the case file. Since then, all the hearings have been adjourned and the case was still pending at the end of 2005.

Harassment of NNSHR⁴¹

On 3 June 2005, Mr. Victor Gurskiy, president of the Nizhny Novgorod Society for Human Rights (NNSHR), was served notice by two representatives of the Ministry of Justice that the activities of the organisation needed to be stopped. This decision was based on the allegation that NNSHR had not complied with a request for documents by the Ministry as part of a check on its activities, in February 2005.

NNSHR pointed out that it had complied with its obligations, which was confirmed by a court decision in April 2005.

By the end of 2005, the Ministry of Justice had not followed up on this notification.

Harassment of RCFS⁴²

– Defamation campaign against Mrs. Oksana Chelysheva and Mr. Stanislav Dmitrievsky⁴³

From February to April 2005, the members of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society (RCFS) were subjected to a defamation campaign launched in the Nizhny Novgorod media, which broadcast comments of representatives of the region's office of the Public Prosecutor and FSB accusing the members, inter alia, of encouraging extremist activities and supporting terrorist acts.

On 14 March 2005, leaflets containing defamatory statements about Mrs. Oksana Chelysheva, editor of the Information Centre of RCFS, and giving her home address, were thus distributed to her neighbours. The leaflets were issued by an unknown organisation called the Youth Patriotic Front of A.P. Ivanov. On 9 September 2005, more leaflets containing threats and defamatory statements against Mr. Stanislav Dmitrievsky, programme director and editor of publications of the RCFS information centre, were distributed in the neighbourhood. Two telephone numbers were given at the foot of the leaflet, as well as the slogan "We are waiting for you!", and a call for reprisals against the two defenders.

In addition, FSB agents also attempted to tarnish the reputation of Mrs. Petimat Tokaeva, a reporter responsible for the Achkhoy-Martan district (Chechnya), by making claims to her neighbours that she was their informer.

– Judicial and fiscal harassment⁴⁴

– Pravozaschita Case. On 11 January 2005, the office of the Public Prosecutor of Nizhny Novgorod initiated proceedings against the newspaper Pravozaschita (Human Rights Defence), a joint publication of RCFS and NNSHR, following the publication of statements by Messrs. Akhmed Zakaev and Aslan Maskhadov, two Chechen separatist leaders who had called for a peaceful settlement of the Russo-Chechen conflict.

On 20 January 2005, FSB agents removed from the RCFS offices the newspaper's statutes, several documents and the employment contracts of seven of the Centre's employees residing in Chechnya. Those members were questioned by FSB agents, and some of them decided to resign because of this pressure. On 24 January 2005, Mrs. Natalya Chernelevskaya, RCFS treasurer, and Mrs. Tatiana Banina, a member of the organisation, were summoned to FSB and told that the content of these articles constituted a violation of Article 280 of the Criminal Code, which prohibits "public appeals to carry on extremist activities".

An expert's report, ordered by FSB, concluded there was no proof that such a crime had been committed and the charges were then reclassified under the term of "incitement to hatred or hostility", a crime liable under Article 282 of the Criminal Code with two years' imprisonment.

On 3 June 2005, Mrs. Chernelevskaya received a call from the head of the Tax Inspectorate of the Nizhegorod district, who threatened her with imprisonment. He also attempted to persuade her to leave her post in RCFS by offering her a better-paid job in his department.

On 11 August 2005, Mr. Stanislav Dmitrievsky, editor of the Pravozaschita newspaper, was heard as a witness by the Public Prosecutor of the Nizhny Novgorod region, and was then accused on 2 September 2005 "of incitement to hatred or hostility". On 3 November 2005, a preliminary hearing took place in the Sovetsk District Court in Nizhny Novgorod.

On 15 November 2005, Mr. Bill Bowring, a British lawyer and coordinator of the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre (EHRAC), was denied access to Russia by FSB agents at Moscow airport, when he had come to attend the hearing on 16 November as an observer. On that day, several RCFS members and employees were called as witnesses.

At a subsequent hearing, on 28 November 2005, about thirty members of the patriotic youth movement Nashi demonstrated before the court, carrying posters, which read: "a terrorist cannot be a human rights defender". On the same day, unidentified individuals searched Mr. Dmitrievsky's apartment. A complaint was filed with the Public Prosecutor's office.

On 15 December 2005, the trial continued with the appeal by Mr. Dmitrievsky, who again refused to plead guilty. At the hearing on 21 December 2005, Mrs. Anna Politkovskaya, a journalist at the Novaya Gazeta, and Mrs. Elena Karmazina, an architect, argued in favour of Mr. Dmitrievsky. The next hearing was fixed for 18 January 2006.

– Fiscal harassment and judicial proceedings. Following an audit by the office of the Federal Inspectorate of Taxes of its accounts, RCFS received, on 16 June 2005, an order from this office, saying that the organisation had to pay 1,001,561 roubles (approx. 28,200 euros) due to its failure to pay fines for grants received in 2002, 2003 and 2004. The basis of this order was Article 100 of the Code of Taxes and it referred to financing received from the European Commission and the National Endowment for Democracy Foundation (NED), arguing that these organisations were excluded from the list of funding providers whose funding was tax exempt .⁴⁵ On 28 June 2005, RCFS appealed this decision to the Regional Arbitration Court of Nizhny Novgorod, believing that the claims by the office of the Inspectorate of Taxes were illegal and unfounded. Despite these proceedings, on 15 August 2005, the office of the Inspectorate of Taxes of the Nizhegorod district issued a new order (Resolution 25) against RCFS, ordering it to pay this amount, on the grounds that the organisation had used the funds received for the "publication and dissemination of publications", an activity not included under Article 251 of the Code of Taxes that governs the use of funds, and after it had nevertheless acknowledged that the funds from the Commission were not taxable.

On 26 August 2005, the office of the Inspectorate of Taxes ordered the bank account of RCFS to be frozen, despite the appeal filed in the meantime by RCFS against Resolution 25.

On 12 September 2005, the Regional Arbitration Court of Nizhny Novgorod ordered the implementation of Resolution 25 to be suspended, and the organisation's bank account was re-opened on 4 October 2005.

On 16 November 2005, the Regional Arbitration Court of Nizhny Novgorod decided to adjourn the hearing of the appeal by RCFS against the office of the Inspectorate of Taxes until 30 November 2005, due to the absence of two members of this institution. However, on 28 November 2005, the Inspectorate of Taxes sent a new order to the bank managing the RCFS accounts, demanding the withdrawal of 91,000 roubles (2,650 euros).

By 15 December 2005, the date on which the Inspectorate of Taxes stopped demanding this withdrawal, 13,500 roubles (394 euros) had been withdrawn from the organisation's accounts. Following this withdrawal, RCFS filed a new complaint with the Regional Arbitration Court for "non-implementation of a judicial decision" (Article 315 of the Criminal Code).

At the hearings on 30 November and 6 December 2005, the representatives of the Inspectorate of Taxes did not give any explanation for these withdrawals, and denied taking the initiative for them.

At the hearing on 13 December 2005, the lawyer for the Inspectorate of Taxes asked for the suspension of this case until a verdict had been reached in the Pravozaschita case. On 20 December 2005, the judge decided to agree to this request and to adjourn the hearing to a later date, as yet to be determined, when the criminal trial would be over.

Finally, following the same audit, judicial proceedings were initiated against RCFS on 2 September 2005 for "failure to pay taxes or other dues on a large scale". On 23 September and 6 October 2005, Mr. Dmitrievsky was questioned as a witness in the regional department of the Ministry of the Interior in Nizhny Novgorod.

– Judicial harassment by the Ministry of Justice. Following an audit carried out by the Main Department at the Federal Registration Service of the Ministry of Justice in the Nizhny Novgorod region, a complaint was filed by the Ministry on 8 April 2005 aiming at closing down RCFS, on the grounds that the organisation had not produced certain documents for the Ministry. This complaint was filed despite the fact that the materials requested had already been provided to the office of the Inspectorate of Taxes as part of its audit of the organisation's accounts.⁴⁶

On 26 October 2005, the representative of the Ministry of Justice asked the judge to order the immediate closure of the organisation.

On 14 November 2005, the judge rejected the request. As the Ministry of Justice did not lodge any appeal against this decision within ten days as stipulated by law, the verdict is final.

– Illegal search and arbitrary detention

On 12 July 2004, police officers entered the RCFS premises in Karabulak (Ingushetia) without a warrant. They seized computer hardware and documents relating to activities of the organisation (testimonies of victims of human rights violations by the Russian Federal Forces in Chechnya, names of alleged perpetrators and details of vehicles used in abductions), then made those present sign a blank document that apparently was a search warrant.

A short time later, the police "found" two empty powder jars in the premises and Mr. Khamzat Kuchiyev, RCFS correspondent, was taken to the Department of Home Affairs in Karabulak on suspicion of "terrorist activities". Mr. Kuchiyev was released on the same day, after the intervention of Mrs. Pamfilova, president of the Civil Society Institutions and Human Rights Council under the President of the Republic.

RCFS complained to the offices of the Public Prosecutor of Ingushetia and Karabulak, denouncing the illegality of the search on 12 July 2004, the arbitrary detention of Mr. Kuchiyev and the fabrication of evidence.

By the end of 2005, an inquiry into these events had yet to be opened.

Assassination of Mrs. Lyudmila Zhorovlya and her son⁴⁷

On 21 July 2005, Mrs. Lyudmila Zhorovlya, a human rights defender in the city of Vorkuta, northern Russia, was murdered at home, along with her 21-year-old son, Mr. Konstantin Zhorovlya.

Mrs. Lyudmila Zhorovlya assisted local residents in lawsuits against the city authorities, calling for compensation for sharp increases in their utilities bills. Her work had been repeatedly criticised, in particular by the mayor of Vorkuta, Mr. Igor Shpektor, and Mrs. Zhorovlya had received death threats by telephone in September and December 2004, and also in January 2005, urging her to cease her work. She had then warned the Public Prosecutor of Vorkuta but had not received any reply.

On 20 July 2005, these threats increased, particularly after she announced her intention to sue the authorities of the town regarding mandatory taxes on television antennae.

An investigation into her death was opened by the Ministry of the Interior that was still underway by the end of 2005.

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[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.]

28. See Press Release, 16 December 2005.

29. These closed administrative entities are towns or regions, access to which is subjected to an authorisation from the Security Services (FSB).

30. The Prokuratura includes investigating officers and prosecutors under the supervision of the Public Prosecutor.

31. See Annual Report 2004.

32. See Open Letter to the Russian authorities, 26 January 2005, and Urgent Appeal RUS 001/0803/OBS 042.1.

33. See Annual Report 2004, Urgent Appeal RUS 001/0605/OBS 043, Press Release, 21 June 2005 and Conclusions of the international fact-finding mission sent by the Observatory to Saint Petersburg, from 18 to 23 June 2005.

34. See Annual Report 2004 and Conclusions of the above-mentioned Observatory mission.

35. Idem.

36. Idem.

37. See Conclusions of the above-mentioned Observatory mission.

38. See Open Letter to the Russian authorities, 26 January 2005.

39. Idem.

40. See Annual Report 2004.

41. See Open Letter to the Russian authorities, 20 June 2005.

42. Idem.

43. See Open Letter to the Russian authorities, 20 June 2005 and Press Release, 16 September 2005.

44. See Open Letters to the Russian authorities, 26 January and 20 June 2005, Press Release, 16 September 2005, and Urgent Appeals RUS 003/0805/OBS 069, 069.1, 069.2, 069.3 and 069.4.

45. See Annual Report 2004. Article 100 of the Russian Code of Taxes deals with the list of donors, whose financing of organisations is exempt from tax. The list of these providers was established by the Russian government and adopted within the framework of Resolution No. 923 dated 24 December 2002.

46. See above.

47. See Urgent Appeal RUS 002/0805/OBS 058.