Two leading human rights organizations, Moscow Helsinki Group and For Human Rights Movement, are going be evicted from their offices by Moscow authorities, Prima News agency reports. Moscow government has decided not to prolong rent of their premises, which they occupy since 1996 and 1997 respectively. The government has already applied to the court for eviction of the NGOs.

Moscow Helsinki Group is the oldest existing human rights organization in Russia, which was founded in late 1970s. Its head Lyudmila Alexeeva, one of the most prominent human rights activists, was just recently awarded the Andrei Sakharov Prize. For Human Rights Movement (Za Prava Cheloveka) is another old and respected human rights NGO headed by Lev Ponomaryov. He says that the reason behind the eviction is either political or economical. Both organizations are outspoken critics of the Kremlin and participate in democratic protests.

PS: As another democratic movement’s activist Vsevolod Chernozub reports on his Twitter, another NGO that defends soldiers’ rights, Mother’s Right is also going to be evicted. I don’t know any more details yet.

Michael McFaul, Barack Obama’s advisor on Russia and Eurasia, has commented today on my post about a “reset” in US-Russia human rights issues. The note was based on Kommersant’s report that “the USA are not going to teach Russia democracy any more and cause irritation in Moscow; they are going to focus on practical work with NGOs instead.”

McFaul comments (it’s in my Facebook, so not everyone can see):

Kommersant grossly misquoted me. See Interfax transcript if you want to see what I really said. And anyone who knows anything about my thinking would be suspicious of such an assessment of my views. My next book , out in a few weeks, is called “Advancing Democracy Abroad: Why We Should and How We Can.”

The Interfax transcript that Mr McFaul refers to reads:

…During his July visit to Moscow, President Obama said that we needed closer cooperation betweer [American and Russian] NGOs. Not just our government funding your NGOs or vice versa. We will continue doing this. But the new serious idea is to make our civil societies closer so that the governments not stand in the way of this process.

I would say that Barack Obama’s approach to these issues [of democracy and human rights] resembles the approach of Ronald Reagan much more than of anybody else. His approach is that we have a lot of common tasks to perform with Russia. We need to reset relations with Russia, this is our common interest. It also concerns the new START treaty, Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea. We achieve results, we do certain things. This is very positive. But we would like to cooperate with both the government and the civil society, we made it clear in the first place. And we don’t want the cooperation on governmental level prevent us from cooperation between our civil societies. This is what our concept is based on. And it is indeed different from what the democrats and republicans have been doing before…

Another protest rally was dispersed Saturday night by Moscow police. The action was a part of the so called Strategy 31–a campaign in support of freedom of assembly guaranteed by paragraph 31 of the Russian Constitution. This basic right to hold peaceful demonstrations is routinely violated by the authorities: major opposition rallies are banned, often without any legal grounds, their participants get arrested and beaten by the police. The situation is particularly bad in Moscow where all government institutions are located and authorities are especially rigid (although legislation is the same in all regions).

As a part of this Strategy 31, several human rights and political activists (as different as prominent Soviet dissident and human rights defender Lyudmila Alexeeva and radical left-wing opposition leader Eduard Limonov, for example) decided to hold a demonstration at Triumfalnaya Square in Moscow downtown on October 31. The action was, as usually, banned; the authorities explained that some kind of a “military-patriotic celebration” was planned for the same time at the same place. In order not to provoke arrests, organizers called participants not to bring any flags or banners or chant slogans. “How long will the police stay there?” they asked, and suggested that people should wait until the police leave the square.

The government had different plans, however. In order to find a pretext to arrest participants of the action, members of Rossiya Molodaya (Young Russia), a Kremlin-aligned youth group (a part of the so-called Putinyouth), were used as provocateurs. They began lighting flares, chanting slogans and throwing leaflets (mocking the opposition) in the middle of the crowd. The police were ready: they arrested the Putinyouth and many regular participants around as well as Limonov. The provocateurs were soon released without any charge while Limonov himself may face up to 15 days imprisonment for “disobeying police orders.”

This provocation was also a signal to start a crackdown on the protesters, most of whom were standing steadily and silently according to the general plan. About 70 people were arrested. Police officers simply pointed at certain activists and they were immediately dragged into police vans. Many others were arrested for just being too close to the scene. Although no resistance was offered, policemen and soldiers beat people while dragging them. According to Russian bloggers, the police even went so far as to try to arrest an American diplomat, Vice-Consul Robert Bond who was observing the rally. Photos of Mr Bond surrounded by the police and showing them his ID card have been posted in many blogs.

I was arrested while trying to tweet what I saw. Apparently, one of the officers recognized me. Along with some 20 more people in the bus I was taken to a police station where we were charged with… lighting flares, chanting slogans and throwing leaflets–the ones that Putinyouth were throwing. As the police officers were filling in the papers with these fake charges, we looked at the walls of the police station’s lecture hall. Portraits of proud police officers as well as of Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev hung there next to Yagoda, Ezhov and Beriya, the three heads of Stalin’s NKVD and Gulag.

As democracy and civil rights in Russia are diminishing with every year, the country is becoming more and more a police state. The voice of dissent is silenced by cynical and cruel country’s leadership. At the same time, Western public opinion and governments generally turn a blind eye to this trend in hope to buy Kremlin’s favour.

PS: Two days before the event, police SWAT had a drill in Moscow-nearby city of Balashikha. They were trained, according to the script, to disperse “a group of senior citizens who demanded social support and blocked a federal highway.” In order to do this, the whole arsenal was used by the police: water cannons, stun grenades and tear gas. The “pensioners” were blocked, many arrested. Bloggers called it ironically a “Russian welfare service.”

According to Russian media (in Russian), Ministry of Home Affairs (whose main agency is police) held tactical maneuvers in Moscow suburbs today. During these maneuvers, SWAT troops were trained to disperse, according to the script, “a group of senior citizens that protested social injustice and blocked a federal highway.” In order to do this, the whole arsenal was used by the police: water cannons, shock grenades, and tear gas. Troops blocked and arrested some of the “senior citizens.”

Minister Rashid Nurgaliev was watching the maneuvers and was apparently satisfied. A lot of civilian journalists couldn’t share his optimism. Even the reports of government TV called the event “very strange.” Here is a report of Vesti news TV channel (one of the most official TV channels owned by the government, in Russian):

Of course, when the scandal broke out, MHA hurried to deny any references to senior people in their maneuvers’ script, the use of water cannons and the very fact of maneuvers; state TV channels removed their news reports from their Web sites. Fortunately, somebody saved the clips and uploaded them to YouTube.

We shouldn’t be so shocked by the maneuvers’ cynical script. In fact, it is already happening in real life. Russian riot police routinely use force to disperse peaceful protests and don’t mind arresting and beating elderly people. I have already posted a video of one such arrest at a vigil for Natalya Estemirova, a deceased human rights activist. Here is another one filmed on December 14, 2008, at Pushkinskaya Square in Moscow where elderly veteran officers tried to stage a peaceful protest but were violently attacked by riot police:

A briefing was held last Thursday in the US Helsinki Commission (officially named the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe) dedicated to the use of microblogs and new media to promote freedom in authoritarian countries. A lot was said about Russia, and I’ll just cite Daniel Calingaert of Freedom House, who referred to a few recent examples of how we utilized Web 2.0 to spread information about electoral fraud:

Citizens in the former Soviet Union have used new media to assert their rights and to challenge abuses of power. In Russia, for example, the Internet was the primary means for drawing attention to fraud in this month’s local elections. When observers in the Moscow district of Zyablikovo found a group of individuals hired to vote for United Russia multiple times, they used Twitter and Livejournal blogs to spread the news immediately and to publish photos of the violators.

A member of that district’s electoral commission, [Andrey Klyukin] gave an online interview to describe in detail the plan behind this fraud. The interview was widely viewed on Russian YouTube and covered by several traditional media outlets. Another group of observers published video footage of a polling-station chairman in the city of Azov as he tried to mix fraudulent ballots which had already been filled in for United Russia with legitimate ballots. This video became a hit in the Russian blogosphere and prompted a criminal investigation of the polling-station chairman. Digital media spread the news of voter fraud in Russia’s local elections and contributed to a real-world response. The news triggered a public demonstration on October 12th
in Moscow’s Pushkin Square and prompted all three opposition parties to walk out of Parliament in protest.

Authoratian governments are aware of the threat that new media pose to them and they use a wide arsenal to silent online criticism, Mr Calingaert continues:

Authoritarian regimes in the former Soviet republics and elsewhere continue to repress their citizens, and this repression extends to digital media. In Russia, for example, Internet freedom has declined significantly in recent years, as bloggers have become subject to hacker attacks, legal prosecution and physical violence. Although there is no technical filtering in Russia, officials often make phone calls to pressure web hosts or Internet service providers to remove unwanted content. The director of a leading hosting company, Master Host, admitted that his company gets about 100 requests a day to remove content from inconvenient – so-called “inconvenient” Web sites.

Full unofficial transcript

Kommersant reports (in Russian) on Michael McFaul’s (Obama’s chief advisor on Russia) talks with Vladislav Surkov (the architect of Russia’s “managed democracy”):

As Michael McFaul told Kommersant after the talks, he brought home to Vladislav Surkov Washington’s new approach to the issue of human rights in Russia: “We came to a conclusion that we need a reset in this respect too and we should give up the old approach that had been troubling Russian-American partnership.” Mr McFaul made it clear that the USA are not going to teach Russia democracy any more and cause irritation in Moscow; they are going to focus on practical work with NGOs instead.

Michael McFaul is known for his sober and clear understanding of the situation in Russia. He barely has any illusions on what the Russian political system is like. But he does really sound like many Realpolitik-infected diplomats, who call the West to turn a blind eye on Russia slipping down to dictatorship.

Is Obama’s administration really going to give the issue of human rights the last priority or how should we understand this “new approach”?

PS: Meanwhile, United Russia has faked about 1,000,000 votes (40% of official turnout) at Moscow municipal elections, according to statistical research (in Russia). Those who went to protest peacefully this fraud were arrested violently Monday night by riot police (including myself). Now we shouldn’t expect that this issue will be raised by US diplomats; otherwise it would definitely trouble the Washington-Moscow partnership.

An investment fund called Hermitage Capital Management accuse Russian police and tax authorities of participating in a fraud, which costed Russian taxpayers $230,000,000. According to their film, an organized group of high-ranking officers bribed judges and lawyers, faked documents and criminal cases to steal more than one billion US dollars from the fund (which didn’t work) and 4 billion roubles from the Russian budget. Trying to conceal the crime, corrupted officers fabricated cases against HCM itself. Yesterday, HCM CEO William Browder and legal adviser Sergey Magnitskiy were charged with tax evasion.

I don’t know the details of the case, so I can’t judge what is true in this movie and what is not. But the story is, unfortunately, very lifelike. No doubt, this could really happen in Russia.

I haven’t recently had time to blog here a lot, sorry about that. Here are some interesting things that happened in the last month or two:

1. Oborona started its English blog (not so many entries yet) and held its second summer training camp Partizan-2009 near Volga river. The camp lasted four days and was packed with training, workshops, discussions etc. Journalists and guests from other democratic organizations participated along with Oborona activists.

Here are some camp photos and a video clip (in Russian):

2. You may now follow me on Twitter (kozlovsky_en). I update it more often that this blog. Oborona is also there but only in Russian so far.

3. For the first time, an individual is sent to prison officially for criticizing the government. Alexey Nikiforov, an opposition leader in Yekaterinburg, was sentenced to 1 year imprisonment for “extremism”: his “crime” was organizing of several peaceful and legal public protest actions. The court considered slogans “Down with the police state!” and “I don’t want to live in a fascist state” extremism. Previously, courts used to sentence “extremists” to conditional terms, not the real ones.

4. Another court in Krasnodarsky Kray found the slogan “Freedom is not given, it is taken” extremism and ordered to ban Novorossiysk Committee for Human Rights, which used that slogan at one public action. The court decision says,

…the call to “take” freedom means that individual rights have priority over the state’s [rights]. Thus, the slogan “Freedom is not given, it is taken” is of extremist nature.

5. While Dmitry Medvedev calls (once again) to “strengthen democracy” and even criticizes political repression (abstract, not the ones that take place in today’s Russia), one of the Moscow’s busiest metro stations Kurskaya now proudly features a quotation from the Soviet anthem of 1943:

Stalin brought us up — on loyalty to the people,
He inspired us to labor and to heroism.

6. All seven Solidarity’s candidates to the Moscow City Duma were denied registration by the Electoral Commissions. In some cases, the reasons were unbelievably absurd and almost unexplainable (like lack of certain unnecessary hints in subscription forms). Even members of the “official opposition” Pravoe Delo (Right Cause) party were also denied registration. Therefore, there will be almost no competition in these elections.

Yesterday Russian police arrested a man in connection with the murder of human rights activist Natalya Estemirova. He wasn’t a killer, her killers will not be punished. The man was arrested for organizing a demonstration in her memory in the center of Moscow. The action was legal but the police said that “too many people” came to mourn Estemirova, grabbed the 70-years-old organizer by his arms and dragged him to a police van. Several people who protested or tried to prevent the arrest were beaten by the riot police. This is how it happened:

The arrested old man is Viktor Sokirko. He was a political prisoner under Brezhnev. Now he became a prisoner of Putin’s regime.

From The Huffington Post.
July 20, 2009.

Natalya Estemirova, a prominent Russian human rights activist and a representative of Memorial, one of the most respected human rights NGOs in Chechnya, was kidnapped and killed last week. She just left her home in Grozny, Chechnya, in the morning of 15 July and was found dead later that day in neighboring Ingushetia. The assassins shot her in the head and in the chest; this was an apparent “extrajudicial execution,” as human rights defenders call it. The reaction of Russian civil society and international community was immediate: human rights and journalist organizations condemned the murder; so did many Western politicians, from leaders of US Helsinki Commission to German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Dmitry Medvedev also said he was “outraged” with the murder and promised that “the killer will be found.”

However, this promise is barely worth anything. The death of Natalya Estemirova is not the first tragedy in the recent history of human rights activism in Russia and in Northern Caucasus in particular. Earlier this year prominent lawyer Stanislav Markelov, who had been defending victims of human rights abuses in Chechnya, was shot dead in downtown Moscow along with young journalist Anastasia Baburova. Owner of a very popular and highly critical to the Ingush authorities Web site Ingushetiya.ru Magomed Yevloev was killed by a senior police officer in August 2008. The murder of famous journalist Anna Politkovskaya in October 2006 was, perhaps, the most outspoken crime of this kind. But many more killings, kidnappings and assaults against human rights activists and journalists remain unnoticed. The performers, not to speak of organizers and masterminds of such attacks are never punished and suspects are rarely even named. Abusing human rights appears to be a safer business in Russian Northern Caucasus than defending them.

This unstoppable wave of violence was made possible thanks to the atmosphere of terror and lawlessness that exists in Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan in recent years. Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, a former insurgent, now a proud and ardent supporter of Vladimir Putin, was given a carte blanche by the Kremlin to do whatever he wants as long as he controls the situation in the republic. This semiliterate but incredibly ambitious man looks extremely corrupted and cruel even by Russian standards. His love for flashy cars and other kinds of luxury as well as formal attributes of social status (for example, Kadyrov, who reportedly even lacks primary education, was awarded an honorary academic degree by the Russian Academy of Natural Science) have become a subject for jokes and gossips among people. His ruthless, medieval methods of punishing the insurgents are a reason for persistent criticism by human rights advocates. He isn’t even very popular among the ruling elite for ignoring all the rules and behaving in a provocative way (like meeting then-President Vladimir Putin in Kremlin wearing just a sport suit). But as long as Kadyrov does all the dirty work in the Caucasus for Moscow, he is invulnerable. He even extends his authority beyond the borders of Chechnya: his battalion of guards fought in the war in Georgia a year ago, now they are officially allowed to operate in Ingushetia.

Cruelty and cynicism are much in demand in the Kremlin. So we must realize that the death of Natalya Estemirova, who carried on her mission of helping ordinary citizens of Chechnya for many years despite the mortal danger for herself, will most probably be perceived there as a “side effect” of Kadyrov’s “efficient management.” The justice will not triumph yet. Her murderers will not be punished. The most we can do is remember Natalya Estemirova and believe that one day humaneness will be rated higher than barbarianism.