Journalists who wrote about deportation Caucasian nations complain to ECtHR of persecutions by authorities

The ladies-journalists from the Buryatia-based newspaper "Svobodnoye Slovo" (Free Word), accused of kindling enmity to Russian power agencies in their materials about the 1944 deportation of Caucasian nations, sent a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).

Let us remind you that on February 23, 2009, in the city of Ulan-Ude, at about 6 in the morning local time the militia detained women-activists of the Democratic Union Nadezhda Nizovkina and Tatiana Stetsura, who were sticking leaflets with an appeal dated to the 65th anniversary of the mass deportation from Northern Caucasus.

The activists were held for about 10 hours at the SIZO (pre-trial detention facility), and then set free. As reported by Ms Nizovkina, militiamen found no attributes of an administrative offence in their actions.

The authors of the leaflet spoke against current repressions, to which Moslems are exposed. "In our leaflet, we wrote about the tragedy of the Chechen and other nations, the guilt for which is on these 'Homeland defenders'," said Ms Nizovkina. "We've also listed other dates related to our country's invasions into Afghanistan, Czechoslovakia and Chechnya."

The distributed leaflet said, in particular, that this February 23 was exactly 65 years of Stalin's deportation of the Chechen people. In 1944, in those days Ingushes, Crimean Tatars, Kalmyks, Germans, Finns, Latvians, Lithuanians, Poles, Bulgarians, Armenians, Turks and Kurds - in total 3,333,000 persons - were evicted from their homelands. Many of them were lost; therefore, the authors of the February 23 leaflet treat the day as "the 'Holiday' of Genocide".

"The leaflet was not only on that, but also on some sort of succession in power policy: repressions were nationality-based in those days - they are nationality-based now. Therefore, there's nothing to justify here. In particular, this holiday was named to be the 'holiday' of genocide, the day of homeland victims, not Homeland Defenders," Ms Stetsura told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

On April 23, 2009, a criminal case was initiated against the journalists under Article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ("Extremism"). According to Tatiana Stetsura, initially they were accused of insult and hatred to three social groups - army, militia and investigatory bodies. Later, their two more published articles were added to the case; one of them was about a politically imprisoned Buryat imam Bakhtiyar Umarov (article "Detained at action in defence of Moslems", "Svobodnoye Slovo" No. 159, February-March 2009).

The second article was about journalist Elena Maglevannaya, who wrote about cases of torture of Chechens in Russian prisons, and subsequently had to emigrate (article "How they tried me: reporting of participant", "Svobodnoye Slovo" No. 160, March-April 2009).

According to Ms Stetsura, these articles, according to the prosecution, had allegedly caused a serious damage to the reputation of the UFSIN (Department of the Federal Service of Punishment Enforcement).

"Therefore, we are now accused of insulting the following social groups: army, militia, investigatory bodies, FSB and UFSIN. Two examinations have been already conducted, the third one is pending," said Tatiana and added that for a more weighty justification from the linguistic viewpoint, the case was sent to an Ural laboratory.

According to Ms Stetsura, now the journalists plan to file a complaint to the Constitutional Court in relation to Article 282 and definition of "social groups", as they are categorical opponents of this article, which pursues people, in their opinion, for ideological views.

However, the complaint, as she said, is "not only on this article, but on persecutions of the freedom of speech as a whole."

Boris Timoshenko, an expert and the head of the monitoring service of the Glasnost Protection Fund, told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that the case with the journalists of the "Svobodnoye Slovo" is an example of another way of pressing mass media and journalists.

According to his story, earlier the most "popular" criminal article applied against journalists was Article 129 of the criminal Code ("Slander"). Then, Article 163 ("Extortion") was used rather actively. "However both articles have probably proved to be not 'technological' enough; the created too many problems for the accusers - in the first case it is practically impossible to prove one's intention. With extortion - it's also not so simple," the expert has noted.

"And here, they've found a good substitute - the 'reliable' Article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code - on exciting enmity and hostility: it's quite easy to apply it. Almost any careless statement or just a critical remark can make the basis for criminal prosecution under this article; and recently it is used even more often, which can't but cause anxiety. It looks like the opponents have found one more way to press on media and journalists," Mr Timoshenko told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

At the moment, Nadezhda Nizovkina and Tatiana Stetsura are under a threat of two years of imprisonment. If the case is re-qualified into Article 280 ("Public appeals to violent change of the constitutional order of the Russian Federation") the potential punishment may be up to 5 years, as the website "Collective Action" writes.