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All News items from Russia
On 13 December 2007, Front Line together with the Anti-discrimination Centre “Memorial” held the seminar “Challenges to legitimacy – Strategies for Strengthening the Space for Human Rights Defenders in Russia”. This event brought together 35 participants: human rights defenders from different parts of Russia, representatives from international human rights NGOs and IGOs, including UN, EU and OSCE - ODIHR. The seminar came out with concrete recommendations for both Russian civil society and the international community. 
Farid Babaev political candidate and human rights defender was assassinated in Makhachkala in Dagestan on 21 November 2007. Farid Babaev had worked to highlight many cases of human rights abuses including, abductions, forced disappearances, the fabrication of criminal cases and unprecedented corruption. Four gunmen opened fire on him in the lobby of his apartment building in a killing reminiscent of the killing of Ana Politkovskaya.
On Sunday family, friends and human rights defenders gathered to mark the first anniversary of the killing of Anna Politkovskaya, demanding action to bring the perpetrators to justice.
On 13 September 2007, at the first session of the OSCE High-Level Meeting on Victims of Terrorism, the USA delegation left the meeting in protest at the decision not to allow the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society to register for the conference.
Front Line is concerned following reports that the offices of the Nizhny Novgorod Foundation to Support Tolerance were raided by police officers on 29 August 2007. The Nizhny Novgorod Foundation to Support Tolerance is a human rights organisation that was founded in March 2007 after the ordered closure of the Russian Chechen Friendship Society (RCFS) under the new restrictive law on associations in Russia.
Human rights defender and lawyer, Valentina Uzunova was attacked on 17 June 2007 by an unidentified assailant (woman) in St. Petersburg and suffered head injuries, including concussion.
Oksana Chelysheva: The slow, painful death of journalism in Russia
For a while, we are not going to be acting as a clearing house for news about Chechnya
Published: 05 February 2007
Did you read about the death of press freedom in Russia the other day? Well, probably not. Independent journalism doesn't expire in a single, dramatic moment. It's more like a series of small blows, leading not to out-and-out demise but suffocation and a life-sucking loss of morale. Another significant punch was landed last month. Russia's Supreme Court in Moscow closed the Russian Chechen Friendship Society (RCFS) on 23 January. This non-governmental organisation, which I helped run in Nizhny Novgorod, was the home for independent journalism on Chechnya. So, they closed us down and - for a while at least - we're not going to be acting as a clearing-house for journalism about Chechnya.
On 22 March 2007, police officers arrived at the office of the Nizhny Novgorod Foundation to Support Tolerance in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia with the suspected intent of detaining two of its leaders, Stanislav Dmitrievsky and Oksana Chelysheva.
The two human rights defenders managed to obstruct the police officer’s plans by immediately contacting international human rights organizations and western diplomats in Moscow officers. The attack on the office is the latest in a series of police actions against the leaders of human rights organizations over recent days. Both Stanislav Dmitrievsky and Oksana Chelysheva have been subjected to heavy police surveillance, and uninvited visitors have presented themselves at their residences.
On January 23, the Federal Supreme Court of Russia denied an appeal of a lower court's order to close the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society (RCFS). The RCFS, based in Nizhny Novgorod, was one of the few remaining organizations in Russia that was reporting on human rights conditions in Chechnya and the North Caucasus.
Oksana Chelysheva, Editor of the Russian-Chechen Information Agency
RCFS IS NOT GOING TO STOP OUR HUMAN RIGHTS, PEACEMAKING AND HUMANITARIAN ACTIVITIES
Open statement by the RCFS on the decision taken by the Russian Supreme Court to liquidate it.
On 23 January 2007 the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation upheld the decision of the Regional Court of the Russian Federation to liquidate our organization, the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society.
We were originally ordered to close down in October last year on the basis of a new NGO and anti-extremism law that made it illegal for an NGO to be headed by a person convicted of "extremist" activities. The Russian authorities wanted us to denounce the acts of our chair Stanislaw Dmitirevskiy and to remove him from our board. Furthermore, they expected us to announce this big news about our act of repudiation from our friend and colleague in public. It would have been dishonorable for us. Neither people in Nizhny Novgorod nor in the North Caucasus permitted such a disgraceful option of saving our bacon by sacrificing our friend.
1st November, 2006
The International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF), which represents 42 Helsinki Committees and other human rights organizations throughout Europe, Central Asia and North America, has released a study documenting the persecution of human rights defenders in Chechnya and Ingushetia.
The 32-page report documents that human rights defenders have been increasingly targeted by state authorities since the beginning of the second Chechen war, and that no effective measures have been taken by the Russian authorities to protect human rights defenders working in the conflict zone. The report also claims that other governments have not adequately addressed the Russian Federation about this matter. Silenceing Human Rights Defenders in Chechnya and Ingushetia
A court ruled on 13 October 2006 to close down the Russian Chechen Friendship Society (RCFS) an organization that monitors human rights violations in Chechnya and provides assistance to victims of the conflict. The ruling in the week of the murder of journalist, Anna Politkovskaya signals a determined effort to silence those who speak out about human rights in Chechnya.
The decision is the latest in an array of judicial and legal harassments against RCFS and its staff. Russian authorities have charged RCFS of violating a range of laws including charges of tax evasion based on claims of grants received, in February 2006, Stanislav Dmitrievsky, the Director of RCFS and editor of its newspaper was convicted of inciting racial hatred under the Russian Federal Criminal Code. The charges are a result of articles featuring statements from leading Chechen separatists’ condemning the war. There is also a pending court decision to liquidate the organization.
The head of the Russian NGO "For Human Rights", Lev Ponomarev has been sentenced to administrative detention by a court for organising a peaceful event to commemorate the victims of the Beslan school siege which began on the 1 September 2004. Lev Ponomarev had organised a meeting at Moscow's Lubianka Square on 3 September 2006 to mark the anniversary of the siege, during which shooting broke out between the hostage-takers and the Russian security forces. According to official data, 344 civilians were killed, including 186 children, and hundreds more were wounded. Lev Ponomarev was sentenced on the grounds that he did not have official permission to hold the event, however under the relevant Russian legislation official permission is not required to hold such an event, only to inform the authorities. Lev Ponomarev had informed the authorities prior to holding the event.
Police dispersed the meeting in Lubyanka Square and reportedly arrested a number of participants who were allegedly charged with administrative offences. Human rights defender, Lev Ponomarev, was the first case to be heard by the court.
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”.
Front Line is concerned by reports received about the targeting of staff of the Society for Russian Chechen Friendship (SRCF) in Nizhny Novgorod, Russian Federation. The Society for Russian Chechen Friendship is an active human rights group that provides daily press releases on the human rights situation in the Chechen Republic. Human rights defenders of the SRCF participated in the Front Line Platform in Dublin in 2003 and the organisation has received the 2004 'Recognition Award' from the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights. According to the information received, on January 20th 2005 agents of the Federal Security Bureau (FSB) conducted a raid on the office of the SRCF, seizing the newspaper statute, registration documents, and other internal documents.
14th February 2005: Chechen human rights defender Mahmut Magomad, abducted on 20 January, has finally reappeared. Front Line is awaiting further information on Mahmut Magomad's health and whether he has been ill-treated while in captivity.
Mahmut Magomad was abducted on 20th January by a group of camouflaged gunmen in front of his wife and children At the time of his abduction, Mr. Magomad was working on over 30 human rights cases, mainly concerning 'disappearances', torture and ill-treatment, and extra-judicial executions committed by Russian security forces. Read about the abduction of Mahmut Magomad
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