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V. Other Types of Pressure on Civil Society

The NGO law is only one of several means the government has used to harass and control certain types of NGOs. Other forms of pressure used by the authorities include specious criminal or other charges against organizations or their leaders, police inspections, and interference with an organization’s substantive work. Anti-extremism legislation has also been arbitrarily used to target at least three NGO leaders; its broad and vague provisions raise concern that the law may be applied as a deterrent to those who wish to tackle violations of human rights that the Russian government would rather not be exposed.

State initiated actions have taken place against a backdrop of a number of incidents in which activists have also been the victims of violence by unidentified assailants, none of whom have ever been caught or prosecuted. Whether there is (or the extent of) any official collaboration or tolerance of these attacks has not been possible at this stage to determine, but the attacks contribute to the hostile context in which activists must carry out their work in Russia today.

Administrative and Judicial Harassment

Criminal proceedings against heads of NGOs

In two cases documented by Human Rights Watch, the authorities lodged questionable criminal charges against the head of an NGO, presumably to pressure the organization. The more high-profile of these involved the Moscow-based Educated Media Foundation, a foreign-funded NGO that trained journalists and worked with many media outlets. The organization was the legal successor in Russia to Internews, a global organization headquartered in the United States that seeks to “improve access to information” and “foster independent media.”¹²⁴

Educated Media Foundation, Moscow

In January 2007 Manana Aslamazyan, the director of the Educated Media Foundation, was detained at Moscow’s Sheremetevo-2 airport for failing to declare excess cash upon returning from a trip to Paris. Aslamazyan was carrying 9,550 euros and 5,130 roubles (the equivalent of US$12,400) in undeclared currency. The limit for bringing undeclared currency to Russia is $10,000. This type of customs violation is usually treated as an administrative offense, punishable by a fine.¹²⁵

On January 31, 2007, a criminal investigation was opened against Aslamazyan, for contraband (smuggling).¹²⁶ On April 18 about 20 officers from the Interior Ministry's Economic Crimes Department searched the offices of the Educated Media Foundation for 11 hours. Police linked the search to the criminal investigation against Aslamazyan. Staff and regional journalists attending a training seminar being held that same day in the foundation’s offices were not allowed to leave until the end of the search. Police confiscated financial documents and computer servers, completely paralyzing the work of the organization; as a result, the Educated Media Foundation was forced to suspend its activities. On June 20 the procuracy announced that Aslamazyan had been criminally charged with contraband and that it was considering opening an investigation on two more criminal charges, illegal business activities and money laundering. The accusation of money laundering was related to foreign grants the organization received from December 2006 to March 2007.¹²⁷

On June 21 the Golovin District Court in Moscow rejected a complaint filed by the Educated Media Foundation that the document seizure at its office was unlawful and unjustified. On July 4 the organization’s founders decided to dissolve the organization, as it was unable to function. Aslamazyan accepted a consultancy position with the US-based Internews Network and left Russia.

Aleksei Simonov, president of the Glasnost Defense Foundation and one of the Educated Media Foundation’s founders, is convinced that “the organization fell victim of a full-scale campaign orchestrated by the government against remaining independent areas of public life in Russia.”¹²⁸

Russia’s media community protested the persecution of Aslamazyan and the Educated Media Foundation. On April 23, 2007, a television company located in the Siberian city of Tomsk posted on its website an open letter to President Putin, signed by over 2,000 media professionals in support of Aslamazyan and the Educated Media Foundation.¹²⁹

Center for Assistance to Migrants, Nizhni Novgorod

In August 2007, FSB agents searched the Nizhni Novgorod Center for Assistance to Migrants, an NGO that provides legal counsel to migrants and represents them in court, in connection with forgery charges against the organization’s head, Almaz Choloyan. Observers are concerned that the accusations against Choloyan are questionable. The only known evidence against her was obtained from a migrant in detention who may have been pressured into giving testimony.

On August 27 at 7 a.m. Choloyan was surrounded by six plainclothes FSB officers as she left her apartment building. The agents presented Choloyan with a search warrant for her apartment. During the search the FSB agents cut the phone line to prevent Choloyan from calling her lawyer and confiscated the Choloyan family’s passports, video tapes, and computer diskettes. Choloyan told Human Righs Watch,

They were very rude during the search in my apartment. They cut off my home phone, took away all [cell] phones: from my kids, from my husband. They did not let me call anyone and very rudely yelled, “Give [us] what you have at home! Stamps, passports, clean Russian Federation passports.”… When they took my mother’s passport, a citizen of Russia—she has been living in Russia since 1993—they shouted, “We found it! We found what we were looking for!” … They seized even the VHS from my niece’s funeral.¹³⁰

Choloyan told Human Rights Watch that at the end of the search FSB agents indicated they intended to take her into custody, and they told her to put on warm clothes and pack money and food. Choloyan believes she was not taken into custody only because the investigator present at the search refused to sign papers necessary to detain her. Choloyan signed a written promise not to leave the city.

After searching Choloyan’s apartment, the FSB agents accompanied her to the Center for Assistance to Migrants. The agents searched the one-room office from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. “We calculated we had here [in a one-room office] two people [agents, witnesses, and the like] per square meter.… They took 12 large boxes with [legal] literature and documents,” Choloyan said. ¹³¹ During the search all of the organization’s financial documents, computer equipment, archives, judicial literature, and even posters were seized.¹³² Confiscation of these materials has paralyzed the Center’s work.¹³³

Choloyan told Human Rights Watch that she believes she is under surveillance, that her cell and office phones are tapped, and that the Center is bugged. Choloyan also said that from May through August 2007, FSB agents approached a group of migrants in Nizhni Novgorod province and forced them to sign pre-written statements against her, and threatened to deport them if they refused to sign. “Two men came and said, ‘Sorry, we signed; two FSB agents came and told us either all of you will be expelled tomorrow or you sign.’”¹³⁴

In September 2007 Choloyan’s status in the criminal case changed from suspect to witness, as authorities did not have enough evidence to formally charge her within the timeframe stipulated by the Criminal Procedure Code.

Administrative harassment

Human Rights Watch documented tax inspections, police raids, and threats of criminal charges against several NGOs that appeared clearly aimed to intimidate them or to force their closure.

Information Center of the NGO Council, Grozny, Chechnya

The Information Center of the NGO Council (hereinafter, “the Center”) is an NGO with offices in Grozny, Chechnya, and until December 1, 2007, in Nazran, Ingushetia. It distributes daily information bulletins on the situation in Chechnya. In the past two years the Center has been subjected to administrative harassment as well as threats and, on one occasion, a raid of its premises.

In January 2005 masked men speaking Russian, wearing military uniforms, and carrying machine guns raided the Nazran office of the Center. They put six of the Center’s employees—including four women—face down on the floor and searched the office. The assailants neither identified themselves nor explained the grounds for the search, and confiscated the center’s computers “for inspection.”¹³⁵

In February 2006 the Second Operational Investigative Bureau, a federal police agency based in Grozny, visited the Center’s Nazran office. They questioned staff about their activities and volunteers and, reportedly, openly threatened them.¹³⁶

The tax service froze the Center’s bank account on February 2, 2007, and on March 7 the Chechen Republic Ministry of Justice filed suit with the Grozny City Court requesting the dissolution of the Center’s Grozny office on the grounds that the Center’s main office was not at its legal address in Grozny. The Center’s headquarters had temporarily moved to a different location while the building at the legal address was undergoing renovation. A note about the temporary relocation and the new address was posted on the Center’s door. Neither the Ministry of Justice nor the Tax Service notified the Center when dissolution proceedings began in court on April 5.

On April 14 the organization was ordered by the Chechen Republic Ministry of Justice to submit, within 48 hours, a full report on its activities, including information regarding the times and places of meetings with international and Russian NGOs, and topics discussed at these meetings. However, when the requested documents were brought to the ministry, officials refused to accept them, saying that the dissolution suit had already been submitted to the court.

The dissolution procedure was stopped in late April after the Ministry of Justice dropped the case against the Center. However, on May 18 the head of the Center was invited to the Chechnya branch of the FSB for a “conversation” and questioned about the organization’s activities, its donors, and funding. The FSB official then said they would contact the Center again if needed.

Throughout summer 2007 the Center was repeatedly inspected by the Ingushetia Tax Service. On June 13 the Ingushetia procuracy ordered an investigation against the organization for operating in Ingushetia without being registered with the Ingushetia Tax Service, a violation of the administrative code. These inspections forced the Center to send its staff on leave for 10 days in July and to suspend all work for that period. In August the Center received a bill for back taxes and penalties for the equivalent of almost US$20,000. The Center has appealed the tax bill and fine in court. At this writing proceedings are ongoing.¹³⁷

Taisa Isaeva, head of the Center, told Human Rights Watch that in September 2007 an FSB official asked her to become an informer, and that when she refused, FSB officials threatened to close her organization within three days. Several days later, the Tax Service of South Federal District started a new inspection of the Center. No significant violations were found. ¹³⁸ Isaeva also told Human Rights Watch, “After I refused to cooperate [with the security services] the organization received direct threats and then our landlord was pressured to evict us from our office. Ultimately, we were forced to close our office in Nazran.”¹³⁹

Human Rights Watch is unable to evaluate whether the Center may have been remiss in its obligation to properly register with the Tax Service. However, the manner in which the inspections were conducted appears to have been intrusive and punitive.

Civic Assistance Committee, Moscow

Civic Assistance Committee, a Moscow-based NGO with a longstanding record of working on refugee issues, became the subject of a criminal investigation by the procuracy after a member of parliament accused the group of giving cover to “ethnic criminal groupings.”¹⁴⁰ In October-November 2006 the economic crime unit (RUBEP) and organized crime unit (RUBOP) of the Moscow police thoroughly inspected the Civic Assistance Committee by examining the organization’s statute and the letters it provides to refugees and asylum seekers urging the authorities to respect their rights. Svetlana Gannushkina, chair of the Civic Assistance Committee, was called in for questioning several times: “I told them how we work. They listened, listened and became pretty enthusiastic about that [the work], and said they are tired of having to respond to stupid requests to inspect someone instead of [fighting crime].”¹⁴¹ Even though neither of the two agencies found grounds to open a criminal case, the procuracy continued the investigation. Although ultimately no charges were brought, in January 2007 the procuracy issued Gannushkina with a warning for violating the Law on Refugees. Gannushkina challenged the legal grounds of the accusations against her:

How can I violate the Law on Refugees? I’m not a subject of this law. The law establishes a legal relation between a [refugee] and the state. But I’m neither the state, nor a refugee.… But they warn me that the “next time” there is going to be a criminal case.¹⁴²

In spring 2007 the Registration Service inspected the Civic Assistance Committee pursuant to a request by the procuracy. The inspection was conducted from April 9 to May 8. “Following the Registration Service’s request we sent them 600 pages of various documents, i.e. our entire staff had been working for the Registration Service,” Gannushkina told Human Rights Watch.¹⁴³ The Registration Service concluded that the Civic Assistance Committee was operating within its statutes and the law. “The inspection was exhausting but its result was positive for us. It is absolutely obvious, I want to stress that once again, that the procuracy used the Registration Service for the purpose of harassment.”¹⁴⁴

Centre for International Protection, Moscow

The Centre for International Protection has been the target of several incidents of harassment, beginning in 2005. The Centre provides legal assistance to applicants to the European Court of Human Rights and the United Nations Human Rights Committee. Its founder and program supervisor, Karina Moskalenko, is representing Mikhail Khodorkovsky in his case against Russia at the European Court of Human Rights. The Russian government has filed petitions asking the ECtHR to remove the Centre’s lawyers from cases filed with it, and has made repeated inquiries about the nature of the lawyers’ arrangements with the Centre. For instance, in late 2005 the Centre was representing a client who filed a case against Russia for ill-treatment in the penitentiary system. The government presented the ECtHR with allegations that the lawyers were “trying to obtain money from the Government through the European Court on the basis of an unlawful contract” and that one of the lawyers had fabricated her power of attorney.¹⁴⁵ Whilst there is nothing unlawful about a government raising legitimate concerns with the European Court of Human Rights about an application, in the context, attempts to discredit lawyers of the Centre for International Protection before the Court, and seeking to prevent the lawyers from representing victims of human rights violations before the Court and to dissuade victims from using the Centre to bring applications to the Court, could also amount to an interference with the right of individual petition.¹⁴⁶ If there are allegations of fraud or fabrication in relation to an application it is a matter for the Court to investigate and to determine.

After government interference with the Centre’s work, several staff, including lawyers, have left the organization.¹⁴⁷

In July 2006 the group received a bill for back taxes and penalties for the equivalent of US$167,000. The government has charged that grants the Centre received from foreign donors in the period 2002-2005 constitute taxable income; the Centre has argued that the grants are tax exempt.¹⁴⁸ If the government enforces the bill, the Centre, which has some 250 cases pending before the European Court, will have to close.

In April 2007 the Procuracy General initiated disbarment proceedings against Karina Moskalenko, arguing that she failed to adequately represent Mikhail Khodorkovsky, even though Khodorkovsky himself rejected these allegations. On June 8 a panel of the Moscow Bar Association rejected the procuracy’s request that Moskalenko be disbarred. The bar association’s board upheld the decision on June 21, and it is not subject to further appeal.¹⁴⁹

Tolerance Supp0rt Foundation, Nizhni Novgorod

The Tolerance Support Foundation—an NGO based in Nizhni Novgorod that works to promote tolerance among various ethnic groups in Nizhni Novgorod province and on issues of abuse in Chechnya—and its predecessor, the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society (for the closure of which see the section “Anti-Extremism Legislation,” below), have faced a series of administrative and criminal charges.¹⁵⁰

On August 29, 2007, officers from the computer crimes department of the local Ministry of Internal Affairs directorate appeared at the organization’s office and presented a warrant for a complete inspection of the foundation’s financial, administrative, and other activities. The warrant did not indicate the grounds for the inspection. After the search, the police confiscated all four of the organization’s computers, claiming that the foundation could not provide licenses for the software installed on them. The computer seizure paralyzed the foundation’s work for 10 days, until the organization purchased used computers to replace the ones that were confiscated.¹⁵¹

On October 2 the procuracy opened a criminal case on software pirating that may result in charges against Oksana Chelysheva, director of the Tolerance Support Foundation, and Stanislav Dmitrievsky, a consultant to the Foundation, under article 146, part 2 of the Russian Criminal Code (violation of copyright and associated rights).¹⁵²

The office of the Tolerance Support Foundation was once again searched for illegal software on the morning of October 6. The search was conducted by a procuracy investigator and two officers from the anti-terrorist center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, accompanied by three witnesses who, in violation of procedural norms, helped to search the office. The police seized CDs found in the office. After the search Stanislav Dmitrievsky was taken to the procuracy for questioning and released.¹⁵³ In the course of the next month, all of the organization’s staff members were also questioned by the procuracy as witnesses.¹⁵⁴ At this writing, there have been no further developments in that case.

Human Rights Watch is unaware of similar inspections of organizations working on issues not viewed as controversial. Other harassment against the Tolerance Support Foundation and its predecessor suggest that the organization was singled out because of its work. On September 28, 2007, the Tolerance Support Foundation was informed by its bank branch office that the bank had received a transfer meant for the foundation but would not release the money. The bank branch’s head of security ordered that the money be sent back to the donor, and referred to information received from Rosfinmonitoring (Federal Financial Monitoring Service), without providing further information. The Tolerance Support Foundation has not been able to access its account at all since September 28,¹⁵⁵ but it received no notification from any government agency that its account had been frozen, and at this writing has received no written explanations from the bank.

The freezing of the Tolerance Support Foundation’s account combined with other incidents of harassment made it impossible for the organization to hold an international forum in commemoration of Anna Politkovskaia, scheduled to take place in Nizhni Novgorod on October 5-6. On the morning of October 5 the Tolerance Support Foundation learned that the conference room it had reserved for a press conference scheduled for that day was no longer available.¹⁵⁶ The next day, the migration police briefly detained five foreign human rights activists, including representatives of Amnesty International, Human Rights First, World Organisation Against Torture, and Barcelona-based League for Human Rights, who had come to Nizhni Novgorod to participate in the event. All five were issued fines for alleged violation of visa rules because their visas specified only Moscow as a destination city.¹⁵⁷

Human Rights Alliance, Nizhni Novgorod

In mid-September 2007 Nizhni Novgorod authorities tried to prevent a three-day seminar on freedom of association organized by the Nizhni Novgorod Human Rights Alliance. About 22 activists from eight regions of Russia participated in the event. Sergei Shimovolos, the organizer of the seminar, told Human Rights Watch that authorities threatened conference venue providers with tax, fire, and sanitary service inspections to force them not to host the seminar. The organization held the seminar by relocating to a new place every day.

Shimovolos told us, “Pressure was put not on us as organizers [of the seminar] but on those who would provide a venue and services to us; they used … just harassment with threats: ‘If you don’t get rid of them, you’ll have problems; do whatever you want.’ Problems were real, as they [security agents] worked with their databases looking for possible violations they [service providers renting out premises for events] can be hooked on.… Grey Horse [a horse club], this is a company, was caught for having insufficient fire-prevention measures.”¹⁵⁸ Shimovolos also said that the participants of the seminar were under surveillance by people they believed to be security service agents, who followed them in cars.¹⁵⁹

Voice of Beslan, Vladikavkaz

Several measures have been taken against Voice of Beslan, an NGO founded by those affected by the 2004 terrorist attack in Beslan. In 2005 the organization addressed an open letter to world leaders appealing for justice for victims of Beslan, effectively blaming the government for the deaths due to its decision not to negotiate with the militants, and condemning President Putin and the Russian government for conducting what it believes to have been an ineffective investigation into the atrocity.¹⁶⁰ In June 2007 the organization appealed to the European Court of Human Rights over failure of the Russian authorities to investigate the terrorist attack that left so many dead. 

On August 13, 2007, six weeks after the organization filed its complaint with the ECtHR, Voice of Beslan faced charges of involvement in illegal activity, pursuant to a complaint filed by a former member of Voice of Beslan who had long left the organization. The plaintiff has claimed she is the true head of Voice of Beslan, and the organization under the current leadership of Ella Kesaeva was operating illegally. The plaintiff requested that Kesaeva’s organization be dissolved and that a “new” Voice of Beslan be registered. Kesaeva told Human Rights Watch that she asked the court to investigate whether additional signatures on the plaintiff’s complaint were genuine, but that the court rejected her request. At the end of December, the Supreme Court of North Ossetia ruled to dissolve Voice of Beslan.¹⁶¹

Further, in January 2008 the procuracy of Ingushetia filed suit with a court in Ingushetia against Kesaeva’s Voice of Beslan, alleging that its 2005 open letter amounted to extremism (see also section below, Anti-Extremism Legislation).¹⁶²

Ella Kesaeva told Human Rights Watch that Voice of Beslan would continue to work for justice despite having been dissolved.¹⁶³

Anti-Extremism Legislation

NGOs that work on human rights, are politically active, or that express or mobilize dissent are vulnerable to being targeted arbitrarily under the 2002 Law on Countering Extremist Activity (the anti-extremism law). The law itself is problematic,and Human Rights Watch has documented several cases of arbitrary application of the anti-extremism law against political and civic activists, giving credence to concerns that the law is being used to marginalize or silence legitimate political dissent.¹⁶⁴ 

The law’s definition of extremism and extremist activity itemizes almost a dozen acts including “the forcible change of the foundations of the constitutional system and violation of the integrity of the Russian Federation,” justifying terrorism, incitement of racial hatred, and “propaganda and public display of either Nazi attributes and symbols or the attributes and symbols similar to Nazi attributes and symbols to the extent of confusion.”¹⁶⁵ The list of extremist actions was amended twice, in July 2006 and in August 2007. As amended, the law’s definitions of extremism raise concerns that they will be used to silence critics of the government. Two new definitions of what may be designated extremist are particularly open to discretionary application: any allegedly politically or ideologically motivated crime; and making a statement accusing a public official of acts of extremism in the course of fulfilling his duties.¹⁶⁶ In a welcome development, however, the amendments removed from the list of extremist activities “humiliating national pride.”

Under article 10 of the law, the activities of an organization believed to be carrying out extremist activities can be suspended. A court can dissolve an organization if it finds the organization to have engaged in extremist activities.¹⁶⁷ The law also obliges an organization to distance itself within five days from its head or a member of its governing body if the latter makes a public statement found to be extremist.¹⁶⁸ Failure to do so can result in an organization’s dissolution.

Further amendments considered by the State Duma in October 2007, if adopted,  will authorize the Federal Registration Service to issue warnings to public and religious associations for allegedly extremist activities and to maintain a federal list of extremist literature.¹⁶⁹ Under article 7 of the anti-extremism law, an organization can be dissolved if such a warning is not appealed or if the warning is upheld by a court, if the organization does not correct violations listed in the warning, or if new facts confirming signs of extremist activities are revealed within 12 months from the date the warning was issued.¹⁷⁰

The Registration Service has indicated it would proactively monitor organizations to ensure their compliance with the anti-extremism law. At a June 2007 press conference, Vitally Astakhov, head of the NCO Department of the Penza Registration Service, said that Registration Service officials were paying serious attention to NGO compliance with anti-extremism legislation, adding that “special attention is being paid to ethnic and sport organizations.”¹⁷¹ Ryazan-Memorial, inspected in May-June 2007, told Human Rights Watch that Registration Service officials conducting the inspection into compliance with its statutes and Russian legislation included examination of how the organization was complying with anti-extremism legislation (Ryazan-Memorial received a warning for alleged tax violations, but no violation of anti-extremism legislation was found).¹⁷²

According to one press report, the press service of Chechnya President Ramzan Kadyrov announced that the Chechnya branch of the Registration Service was cooperating with the Chechnya FSB and the federal and Chechen Republic Ministry of Internal Affairs in order to prevent extremist manifestations in NGO activities.¹⁷³

In one case the authorities closed an NGO using the anti-extremism law, and many are concerned that this demonstrates the authorities’ ability to arbitrarily apply the law’s many vague provisions to intimidate other organizations they find inconvenient. In February 2006 a criminal court in Nizhni Novgorod handed Stanislav Dmitrievsky, who at the time was executive director of the Russia-Chechen Friendship Society, a two-year suspended sentence with a four-year probation period on charges of “inciting racial hatred.” The charges derived from articles he had published in 2004 in the newspaper Pravozashchita that featured statements from Chechen rebel leaders Aslan Maskhadov and Akhmed Zakaev.¹⁷⁴ The statements amounted to protected speech: a statement by Maskhadov, who was killed by Russian forces, called for the international community to facilitate negotiations to end the Chechen conflict. A statement by Maskhadov’s representative, Zakaev, urged Russian voters not to re-elect President Putin and alleged that the war was in only Putin’s interests.

Dmitrievsky has submitted his case to the European Court of Human Rights, which is to review it in an expedited procedure.

In October 2006 the Nizhni Novgorod Province Court ordered the dissolution of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society under the terms of the extremism law for “tacitly approving” of Dmitrievsky’s actions by failing to distance itself from him within five days of his conviction.¹⁷⁵ In late January 2007 the Russian Supreme Court upheld the decision to dissolve the organization, prompting the European Union to issue a public statement voicing concern that the NGO law and the law on extremism “can be implemented in an arbitrary manner.”

On August 17, 2007, the Nizhni Novgorod District Court granted a government motion to toughen the terms of Dmitrievsky’s suspended sentence. Under the new terms allowed by the court’s decision, if Dmitrievsky commits two administrative violations within a year at any time during his four-year probationary period, the government can petition to replace his suspended sentence with a two-year prison term. Administrative violations might be as minor as crossing the street in the wrong place and are routinely used against activists for participating in public demonstrations. On October 26, 2007, the Nizhni Novgorod Province Court annulled the ruling, stating that the district court violated procedural norms, and returned the case to the lower court for a second review.

In a second case, on December 19, 2007, the procuracy of Ingushetia filed extremism charges with a court in Nazran against Voice of Beslan. The procuracy alleged that an open letter the organization sent to world leaders, blaming Putin and the Russian government for the deaths of so many hostages in the Beslan atrocity, amounted to extremism under the 2007 amendment to the extremism law.¹⁷⁶ At this writing a hearing had not been scheduled.

On May 3, 2006, the prosecutor’s office, on the initiative of the Mari-El branch of the Federal Security Service, opened a criminal case against Vitalii Tanakov, a priest of a traditional pagan Mari religion and a board member of Mari Union (see above). Tanakov was accused of incitement to ethnic and religious hatred (article 282, part 1 of the Russian Criminal Code) for writing and distributing a pamphlet entitled A Priest is Speaking. Tanakov was found guilty of humiliating others based on their ethnicity and attitude towards religion, and of incitement of social enmity. On December 25, 2006, Tanakov was sentenced to 120 hours of community work.  In April 2007 the Ioshkar-Ola city prosecutor sought to have the city court declare Tanakov’s pamphlet “extremist literature”. At this writing proceedings are ongoing.¹⁷⁷ If Tanakov’s pamphlet is declared extremist literature, Mari Union could face dissolution under article 15 of the Law on Countering Extremist Activity if it fails to publicly distance itself from Tanakov within five days of his conviction.

In August 2006 charges against Nina Maksimova, the head of Mari Union, were separated from the Tanakov case and a criminal case was opened against her for incitement to enmity. The case against Maksimova was closed and the charges were dropped in November 2006 for lack of evidence, although she was notified of that only in March 2007. As reported by Maksimova’s lawyer, Maksimova refused to proceed with a case against the Ioshkar-Ola procuracy and FSB for arbitrary criminal prosecution because she feared further reprisal.¹⁷⁸

Threats to Activists

With regard to human rights organizations, while the authorities vigilantly enforce the laws regulating NGOs, they are by contrast lax in reacting to violence and threats of violence against human rights defenders. In her March 2006 report, the United Nations special representative of the secretary-general on human rights defenders, Hina Jilani, expressed concern that “the situation of defenders in the Russian Federation seems to be increasingly vulnerable, and that both defenders and their families reportedly are in almost constant danger both from State actors and non-State actors.”¹⁷⁹

On November 23, 2007, Oleg Orlov, chair of the Memorial Human Rights Center, and three journalists from the Moscow-based REN-TV television station—Karen Sakhinov, Artem Vysotsky, and Stanislav Goryachikh—were kidnapped from their hotel rooms in Nazran, the capital of Ingushetia, beaten, and released. Armed men in masks stormed the Hotel Assa in Nazran and abducted the four men. The attackers took all their belongings, including laptops, cell phones, clothes, and money. The assailants, who spoke un-accented Russian, told the four men they were suspected of illegal possession of explosives. They then put black plastic bags over the four men’s heads and drove them to the Ingush border with Chechnya. There they brutally beat the four, threatened to execute them, told them to leave Ingushetia, and then abandoned them. Orlov and the journalists managed to reach a nearby village and eventually gave testimony to police. Two of the three journalists had to be hospitalized for their injuries. Orlov and the REN-TV journalists were in Nazran to report on a demonstration against the authorities’ inability to counter a wave of murders, abductions, and “disappearances” in Ingushetia.¹⁸⁰ Police interviewed the four men, but at this writing there is no information about any progress in the investigation.

On September 27, 2007, at about 9 p.m., Aleksei Suslikov, who is deputy chair of the Consumer Rights Protection Center, a Saratov-based NGO, and head of the Saratov Public Chamber, was attacked by two unidentified assailants in the hallway of his apartment building. Suslikov suffered a craniocerebral trauma with nine open wounds, apparently caused by a hatchet. A doctor who examined Suslikov stated that the nature of the wounds indicated that the assailants attempted to kill the activist.¹⁸¹ The assailants took files Suslikov had with him and his keys, but did not touch his money or other valuables. The police did not respond to calls for aid, did not show up at the crime scene, and only talked to Suslikov at the hospital the day after the assault.¹⁸² Activists believe that the attack was related to Suslikov’s work, in particular projects on housing and property rights.¹⁸³ Several days prior the attack, Suslikov had received a threatening text message on his mobile phone saying that in the future he would not be able to help consumers.¹⁸⁴ A police investigation for assault was opened, but at this writing the police are not known to have taken any meaningful steps in the investigation.

On January 25, 2007, Galina Kozlova, a member of the Mari Union board, was attacked by an unidentified assailant near her home in Ioshkar-Ola. As a result of the attack Kozlova sustained head injuries and a concussion, and has eyesight problems.¹⁸⁵ Two years earlier, on February 4, 2005, Vladimir Kozlov, chair of the Mari Council and Kozlova’s husband, was severely beaten close to his office. The authorities have failed to investigate these attacks. Kozlov told Human Rights Watch that the criminal case was closed “due to absence of witnesses and impossibility to find assailants.”¹⁸⁶

In August 2006 the ultra-nationalist webpage Russian Will posted a direct call to kill individuals it listed as “enemies of the nation.” The list contained names, photos, dates of birth, home addresses, and phone numbers. The list has repeatedly appeared on and disappeared from the Russian Will webpage.¹⁸⁷ The list included prominent human rights defenders Svetlana Gannushkina and Sergei Kovalev. Gannushkina told Human Rights Watch that after the list was published she and other people included on it received threatening phone calls.¹⁸⁸ In November 2006 the FSB rejected opening a criminal investigation into the death threats posted on the Russian Will webpage, arguing that “perception of the information as a call [to murder] is a result of superficial, common [bitovoi] analysis of its content” and that posting of the list “does not represent real public threat due to its insignificance.”¹⁸⁹

Those who expose abuses in Chechnya and fight for accountability, like the late Anna Politkovskaia, are especially vulnerable. In March and in September 2005 several hundred leaflets were distributed in Nizhni Novgorod directly calling for human rights defenders Oksana Chelysheva and Stanislav Dmitrievsky to be killed for their work on Chechnya. Nobody has been prosecuted for the production and distribution of the leaflets, and on July 19, 2007, the Nizhni Novgorod procuracy closed the criminal case on the grounds that the statute of limitations had expired.¹⁹⁰ Human rights defenders and investigative journalists became more conscious of their vulnerability after Politkovskaia was murdered in October 2006.