Russian NGOs do not agree with the president Putin´s decision to stop the “hysteria about YUKOS”, the oil giant. Its former leader Mikhail Khodorkovsky is still in prison and accused in several crimes. Human rights activists deeply concerned with the Russian state power turning back to repressive methods of ruling the country. Some even call Khodorkovsky´s arrest the “start of the fight with civil society” in the Russian Federation. (03-DEC-03)
The investigation on the case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former president of the Russian oil giant YUKOS, is over. The richest man in the Russian Federation is still in jail and accused in several crimes including fraud, non-fulfillment of the judicial decision, evasion of tax payments and contributions, documents´ falsification, etc. Besides that, Khodorkovsky is personally accused for not paying USD 1.7 mln as income tax and insurance fees for the Pension Fund of Russian Federation in 1998-1999.
The General Procurator Office refused to react on numerous affords of democratically oriented politicians, public leaders and lawyers to change the preventive punishment. The proposition to release Khodorkovsky from prison in exchange to give a written undertaking not to leave a place was totally ignored. The President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin indicated his attitude towards Khodorkovsky case by asking “to stop the hysteria about YUKOS”.
But many NGOs do not agree with the president´s position and do not see any ´hysteria´ at Khodorkovsky´s story. Recently a group of NGOs made a public statement and expressed the deepest concern with the fact of Russian federal power turning back to repressive methods of ruling the country.
“Arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky announced the start of the fight with civil society. This is the political provocation sanctioned on highest levels of the Russian state. This is the evidence of the bankruptcy of all the previous policy of guided democracy and an evidence of the crisis of the power. We are paying an enormously high price for our dissociation and passiveness. In fact our society is standing in the edge of new totalitarianism, which would be followed with distemper and collapse of the state system”.
This statement together with a call for the broadest merge of NGOs and public actors for defending democracy in the Russian Federation was first made on behalf of the All-Russian conference of “civic” and human rights NGO at the end of October. Since then the informal online Information group (clearing house) has been created to inform the regional NGOs on the recent developments of the case and rapid public actions. This group exists under the roof on Narodnaya assambleya, or “People´s assembly”, the coalition of the main HR and civic NGOs as Confederation of the Consumers associations, Moscow Helsinki Group, Memorial sociaty and others.
The special web-resource on Khodorkovsky and abuse of power is also on its way, being constructed by another group of activists. Foreseeing possible deterioration and threats for the former YUKOS leader, human rights NGOs consider this independent informational activities as most appropriate for the moment.
Photo: www.hro.org
