Funds seizure concerns Russian human rights defenders
12 september 2005
Prominent Russian human rights organisations including Memorial and The Moscow Helsinki Group, have collectively expressed their concern in a joint statement, over the seizure of funds by Russian tax authorities from the human rights organisation the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society
Russian Tax authorities (FTE) have demanded approximately 1,000,000 Roubles (approximately $35,000) in back taxes and fines for the alleged failure of the RCFS to pay tax on international grants. The FTE began forcefully withdrawing funds from the organization’s bank accounts on 26 August 2005, although the case is being appealed in arbitration court and no final decision has yet been made. Without these funds, which were raised through grants from the European Commission and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the organization will be forced to close.
Article 251 of the tax code of the Russian Federation states that tax free grants must be dedicated to “education, arts culture and environmental defence fields”. The deputy chief of tax inspection is arguing that the RCFS is using the subsidy for “publishing and diffusing publications”.
The RCFS said that the FTE’s actions are in severe breach of existing legislation and for the first time in the history of the Russian Federation, a precedent is being created whereby operational grants to an NGO are subjected to state taxation. Mr Stanislav Dmitrievsky, The Managing Director of the RCFS editor of the human rights newsletter Pravozaschita said:” This targeted and discriminatory action is aimed at paralysing the legitimate activities of a registered non-governmental organisation that has become inconvenient for Russia’s authorities. Everyone must realize that the whole of the country’s non-governmental sector is under severe threat.”
On 3 September 2005, the Nizhny Novgorod prosecutor’s office charged Mr Dmitrievsky, with the crime of “inciting hatred or enmity on the basis of ethnicity and religion” (part 2b of Article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code). The allegations are based on two interviews, with the now deceased Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov, which were published in Pravozaschita. In them he called for an end to the war in Chechnya and criticized President Vladimir Putin’s policies in that region. Mr. Dmitrievsky had already been threatened with prosecution for these same interviews in January 2005, but under a different article of the Russian Criminal Code.
According to new information received, on 9 September 2005, leaflets were distributed in the apartment block where Mr Dmitrievsky lives. It is reported that the leaflets directly threatened Stanislav Dmitrivsky and another member of the RCFS, Oksana Chelysheva and contained the threat “...death to scum, we are waiting for you....”. Although the leaflets were signed the National Bolshevik Front, the movement has denied any involvement. A similar leaflet campaign was carried out against Oksana Chelysheva near her home in March 2005.
The RCFS is an internationally respected Russian human rights organisation with branches in Chechnya, Nizhny Novgorod and Ingushetia and is a long established partner of Front Line. The RCFS monitors and reports on human rights abuses in the region, and has often been a target of persecution including murder, abduction, attacks, surveillance, harassment and intimidation of its members.
Front Line has called on the Russian authorities to order the immediate release of all RCFS funds and to ensure that the RCFS and other human rights defenders are free to carry out their legitimate human rights work without fear of reprisal.