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RCFS objects to the local authorities’ tax evasion claims
Among the most common strategies of harassment of human rights defenders, both as individuals and at the organisational level, are accusations of formal, bureaucratic wrongdoings, such as tax evasion. Below is a story of this happening to the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society. Read the organisation´s own press release on the issue, signed by Stanislav Dmitrievsky (right) and Oksana Chelysheva (left). (15-OCT-05)
Back to Blagoveshchensk
12 October 2005 a district officer of Blagoveshchensk (Republic of Bachkiria, Russian Federation), Vasiliy Jukov was put on probation for 3 years. He was the second policeman who was condemned for exceeding his authority by covering up the mass beatings on 12-14 December 2004 in Blagoveshchensk, when OMON and police had beaten citizens of Blagoveshchensk and its suburbs. Read more (16-OCT-2005)
Stop the death penalty, torture and repressions in Uzbekistan!
On 10 October 2005 activists from Amnesty International led a protest in Moscow against the death penalty, torture and repressions in the Republic of Uzbekistan. They used symbolic human figures of “silent witnesses” on which they put the names of real people who are subject to torture and condemned to death. (12-OCT-2005)
Several human rights NGOs protest the attempts to silence RCFS
Last week, several human rights NGOs and well-known individual human rights defenders demonstrated against the recent attempts to silence the Nizhny-Novgorod-based NGO Russian-Chechen Friendship Society (RCFS). www.humanrightshouse.org has received RCFS?s own newsletter report and numerous pictures of the demonstration. read the report and see the pictures below. (10-OCT-05)
Human Rights NGO Memorial gets prestigious international award
On 5 October Rolf Ekeus, the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities, declared that the Russian human rights organization “Memorial”, Historical, Educational, Human Rights and Charitable Society, has been awarded the prestigious International Van der Stoel Award. (10-OCT-05)
Human rights activists against law enforcement arbitrariness
On 3 September in Moscow human rights activists from the Movement For Human Rights began protesting against police arbitrariness. They went to the square near the Russian Museum of History with placates reading: ‘We don’t need this type of vertical power, No to police arbitrariness, Criminal responsibility for mass beatings and unconstitutional orders’. (07-OCT-05)
Oppression of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society
On 29 September Stanislav Dmitrievsky, right, the executive director of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society and the mane editor of the newspaper Pravo-zashchita, was handed the accusative conclusion of the indictment of inciting interregional and ethic enmity, in accordance with Article 282 Procedural Criminal Code, of the Russian Federation. The maximum punishment provided by this Article is 5 years´ imprisonment. (29-Sep-05)
The fate of the nation’s children
On 9 September the Russian State Duma sent an appeal to the Head of State re. the regulation of the process of adoption of Russian children. The appeal proposes a temporary moratorium on the adoption of Russian children by citizens from the US and also a bilateral agreement as an obligatory condition for adoptions. This is the reaction towards several cases of murder of adopted Russian children in the USA in recent years. Boris Altshuler (right), the head of the “Right of Child” human rights organization sees a lot of serious problems in this project. (27-SEP-05)
Stop Nazism!
It´s time to say: Stop Nazism! On 1 September, by initiative of several Russian anti-fascist organizations, the international movement Europe without Nazism was launched. (06-SEP-05)