16 November 2005, 21:26
Rights defender goes on trial
Examination in essence of a criminal case against Stanislav Dmitrievskii, editor-in-chief of the newspaper Pravo-zashchita ("Rights Defence") and chief executive of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society (RCFS), charged with inciting racial, interethnic, and social hatred, began in the Sovetskii District Court of Nizhny Novgorod at 10.00 a.m. today. The court interrogated members and officers of the RCFS and the Nizhny Novgorod Society for Human Rights (NNSHR) summoned as witnesses of the prosecution. At 12.00 a.m., because of the failure to come on the part of some witnesses and an expert, the court announced a break until 25 November.
In their statements, Ms Tatiana Banin, an editor with the Russian-Chechen News Agency, Mr Alexander Lavrentiev, chairman of the NNSHR, and Mr Victor Gurskii, ex-chairman of the NNSHR, explained to the court that they thought that the publications which the charge criminalised promoted peace in the Chechen Republic because they contained appeals to a political settlement of the armed conflict.
Mr Dmitrievskii's defence lawyers at the trial were two representatives of the ethnicities between which the prosecution claims he had incited hatred — Mr Yuri Sidorov (Nizhny Novgorod), a Russian, and Ms Leila Khamzayev (Moscow), a Chechen.
The human rights defender is charged under Article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code which criminalises "actions aimed at inciting hatred or enmity or demeaning a person or a group of persons on the basis of sex, race, nationality, language, origin, attitude towards religion, and affiliation to any social group." This article provides for a punishment of up to five years in prison. The criminal case was opened in January this year over the publication in Pravo-zashchita of statements by Aslan Maskhadov, ex-president of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, and his envoy Ahmed Zakayev with appeals to a peaceful settlement of the Chechnya conflict. These publications contained scathing criticism of the actions of the Russian government, Russian armed forces, and personally President Vladimir Putin of Russia. Human rights defenders believe the charges to be politically motivated and aimed at eliminating constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech.
