Update:
Yesterday’s seizure of computers at the Tolerance Support Foundation was followed today by a raid on an independent newspaper in Nizhni Novgorod.
At 1 p.m. officers from the economic police appeared at the office of Novaia Gazeta-Nizhni Novgorod, one of Russia’s few remaining independent newspapers. Similar to yesterday’s raid on the Tolerance Support Foundation, police presented a warrant for complete inspection of the newspaper’s financial, administrative and other activities.
After the search the police confiscated all six of the newspaper’s computers for examination for illegal software. Journalists were not allowed to copy any of the information stored on the computers, which contained the newspaper’s entire archive. Zakhar Prilepin, editor-in-chief of Novaia Gazeta-Nizhni Novgorod, told Human Rights Watch that the seized computers were private property of the staff and that the police did not have a warrant to confiscate them. Prilepin believes that today’s raid was politically motivated and that the newspaper frequently publishes materials critical of regional authorities.
If authorities do not return the computers, the next issue of the Nizhni Novgorod-Novaia Gazeta will not be released as the newspaper does not have financial means to purchase new equipment.
(Moscow, August 30, 2007) – The Russian government should end its campaign to silence political dissent by intimidating and harassing human rights groups, such as the police seizure yesterday of computers belonging to the Tolerance Support Foundation, Human Rights Watch said today. The police seized the computer equipment in an apparent attempt to stop the group from continuing its work, and in retaliation for its connection to an embattled human rights defender.
The Tolerance Support Foundation works to promote tolerance among various ethnic groups in Nizhegorodskaia Province. Formed after the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society was liquidated in 2006 by a court order under Russia’s law on extremism, the foundation also works on issues of abuse in Chechnya.
According to Oksana Chelysheva, director of the Tolerance Support Foundation in Nizhni Novgorod, about 280 miles east of Moscow, three officers from the department of computer crimes in the Russian internal affairs directorate, accompanied by two witnesses, appeared at the foundation’s office. They presented a warrant ordering a complete inspection of the foundation’s financial, administrative and other activities. The warrant did not contain the grounds for the inspection.
After the search, the police confiscated all four of the organization’s computers, claiming that the foundation could not provide licenses for the software installed on them.
Chelysheva and Yuri Staroverov, the foundation’s system administrator, received orders to appear for questioning at the Nizhni Novgorod police station on August 31 in relation to unlicensed software discovered in the office.
“We believe that the Tolerance Support Foundation was singled out for inspection in retaliation for its activities,” said Cartner. “The foundation cannot work without its computers, but confiscation of its computers is just the beginning. Given what’s in the warrant, there’s a risk that the organization will be buried with endless inspections.”
The inspection of the Tolerance Support Foundation appears to be a reprisal for the organization’s affiliation with Stanislav Dmitrievsky, an advisor to the foundation who in February 2006 received a two-year suspended sentence on charges of “inciting racial hatred” for articles he had published in the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society’s newspaper and who organized the Dissenter’s March in Nizhni Novgorod in April. Chelysheva told Human Rights Watch that the first question the police asked upon arriving at her office yesterday morning was, “Where is Dmitrievsky?”
The articles Dmitrievsky published featured statements from leading Chechen separatists that Human Rights Watch found did not contain any language that could legitimately be prohibited under international human rights law.
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