Stanislav Dmitrievskiy makes last plea in Nizhni Novgorod court

On February 3, at 10 a.m. the court session on the case of Stanislav Dmitrievskiy, executive director of Russian-Chechen Friendship Society and chief editor of the "Pravozaschita" newspaper, started in Soviet district court of Nizhni Novgorod. It has just become known that the defendant's final plea was heard. The announcement of the court ruling is appointed at 12.30 p.m.

The Russian-Chechen Friendship Society cites Stanislav Dmitrievskiy's last plea at the court session.

"Your Honour!

In the course of oral hearing, my lawyers and me have given sufficient details of the legal aspects of the charges laid to me and on their groundlessness and even absurdity in the conditions of a democratic society and state. I am not going to repeat them. Using the right of the last plea granted by the law, I should like now to dwell on the moral and ethical aspects of this strange, to put it mildly, accusation.

I want to state that I am profoundly indignant with the cynical presentation of the state prosecutor during the oral hearing. Indeed, Ms Maslova's reference to the tragedy in Moscow synagogue is a cynicism of a highest degree. Since Ms Maslova spoke on behalf of the state rather than gave her own opinion, we have a vivid example of a state cynicism. Indeed, it is the prosecutor's offices that connive at, and in some cases patronize, anti-Semitism and xenophobia in this country. And when a tragedy occurs, it is their tradition to blame their own reflection in the mirror and shout "stop thief" ahead of others.

Prior to the previous court session, a group of well-known Russian human rights activists, some of whom are present today in this court room, made a statement in which they recall that exactly a year ago the public was shaken by a violent anti-Semitic manifesto, i.e., "letter of 20 State Duma deputies." The fact that the text bears an anti-Semitic and man-hating character was recognized by the MFA, the State Duma, chairman of the Federation Council, the Federal Service on Monitoring the Abidance by Federal Legislation in Mass Media... President Putin offered his apologies in Oswiecim for the escapade. However, despite the fact that this anti-Semitic libel was sent directly to the General Prosecutor's office twice, no legal outcome followed. Seeing such loyal attitude, the authors collected signatures across Russia to prohibit Jewish organizations in Russia. Late in March 2005, they triumphantly passed their petition to the General Prosecutor's Office. At the end of May, the Basmannaya inter-district prosecutor's office refused to initiate criminal proceedings with regard to these two anti-Semitic campaigns. The decision was promptly approved by Yuri Biryukov, first deputy General Prosecutor. The prosecutor's offices of Moscow and St-Petersburg decided that the anti-Semitic manifesto does not run counter to the legislation at the same time.

The prosecutor's office has nothing against the authors and disseminators of the text, despite the fact that the "letters" accused Jews of ritual murders and Satanism! That is, not counting routine accusations of Jews with their strive to world domination.

The prosecutor's offices in Nizhni Novgorod oblast hold a similar stand. Anti-Semitic leaflets were disseminated in the Lenin district of Nizhni Novgorod at the beginning of December. On December 12, the Nizhni Novgorod human rights union applied to the district prosecutor's office to initiate criminal proceedings. However, no criminal proceedings have been initiated in violation of all procedural time limits.

In autumn 2004, the "Moskovskiy Komsomoletz v Nizhnem" newspaper, in its editorial, published calls for deportation of all Chechen people to the Far North areas. I promptly applied to the prosecutor's office to initiate criminal proceedings under article 282 of the RF CC. But in this case, too, the prosecutor's office, in the Nizhni Novgorod district this time, failed to find elements of a crime in the calls. Where does such tolerance come from, such "tolerance to intolerance" as Ms Maslova puts it? It seems that the authors of the pogrom leaflets and provocative articles are spiritually close to those who consider, but are not able to decide, the issue of their criminal prosecution.

I assert that xenophobia and anti-Semitism is the ideology of those who initiated the criminal case under consideration here. I should like to draw attention of the esteemed court to the opinion of expert Khokhlysheva which was submitted upon the request of the oblast prosecutor's office and, upon my application, was made public during the last but one court session. Although the indictment does not make reference to it, it is this opinion that has been the only legal basis for initiating the criminal case against me. This document well illustrates both the moral approach of the prosecution and the sense of justice of the people who initiated criminal prosecution against me.

Let me recall: on January 29, 2004, Malyughin, prosecutor of the department on supervision over the abidance by citizens' rights and freedoms under the oblast prosecutor's office, sent an accompanying letter to the head of chair of global policy and international law at the National State Humanitarian University named after Lobachevsky, in which he, categorically and groundlessly, claimed that the Maskhadov's and Zakaev's addresses contain calls for extremist activity, and put a question before the expert: "do the said articles contain calls for a forced change of the constitutional regime and undermine the security in the Russian Federation?" The response to the prosecutor's office from the sanctuary of science, makes a strong impression.

The document signed by Olga Olegovna Khokhlysheva, "PH doctor, doctor, assistant professor, professor, head of chair", runs that such peoples as Chechens, Arabs and Jews, do not exist at all. At the same time, the opus also doubts the Stalin's mass deportation of 1944, simultaneously justifying the deportation itself and, along with it, the dispossession of koulaks, because they were "in line with the policy... pursued for the sake of safeguarding the state interests of the time." This kind of logic is, undoubtedly, monstrous for a lawyer and a teacher who trains a new generation of specialists in international law. It could be used for justifying the Holocaust, because mass annihilation of Jews also was "in line with the policy... pursued for the sake of safeguarding the state interests of the time " (let us recollect that the state was the Third Reich). Especially as the Jewish people, as well as Chechen people, do not exist, from the viewpoint of the author of the expert opinion.

Khokhlysheva, who refers to the Chechen people as "the so-called people" in her expert opinion, writes: "As is known, several tens of different nation types reside on the territory of modern Chechnya, among which, undoubtedly, there are Chechen representatives. Consequently, one can hardly speak of one nation at all: in general, the term "Chechen nation" is not correct, either politically or scientifically, it would be the same as to speak about Indians or Americans; Arabs or Jews; the Chechens represent a generic notion, it has been necessary and became a clich? primarily for mass media."

I am not going to tire the audience with references to the Chechen history, ethnography and studies of the problems of their ethnogeny. Hopefully, the court is aware of my certain knowledge on such issues. I will only note that not a single scientific publication on Caucasus studies, before Khokhlysheva, has ever doubted the existence of a uniform Chechen ethnos. On the other hand, a lot has been written by scientists on the Chechen type as a typical neighbourhood peasant community. Where has Khokhlysheva taken her troglodyte ideas from, I do not know because she never cited any sources or published literature. In all probability, she has simply mistaken Chechnya for Dagestan where, indeed, several tens of nations reside. They speak languages belonging to different language families and branches (Dargins, Tats, Avars, Kumiks, Laks, Lezghins, and others), and some of them, indeed, the mass media refer to by a clich? "Dagestanians," although there is no such nationality. While this kind of mistake can hardly be excused for a doctor of historical sciences, one can understand the sources of such pedestrian incompetence. But the claim of non-existence of the Jewish people as a single ethnos can only be found in anti-Semitic brochures of the lowest grade. Incidentally, under a generous connivance of the prosecutor's office, they are freely sold in the kiosk on Minin Square in front of the building of the faculty where Ms Khokhlysheva teaches. Must really a tragedy happen in Nizhni similar to the recent one in Moscow synagogue, which a criminal caused after reading this type of publications, for the law enforcement agencies to finally pay attention to such kiosks? The prosecutor's office must look for extremism where it really exists and not where the bosses tell them to look.

It would seem that an experienced lawyer, a prosecutor from the oblast prosecutor's office, should be put on the alert by strange statements of a university expert. While he does not have to be competent in history, such contemptuously xenophobic utterances as "the so-called Chechen nation," the use of the "Chechens" in inverted commas and a foul anti-Semitic smell should have made him doubtful of Olga Khokhlysheva's competence. Somehow, this has not happen.

Moreover, further assertions by Khokhlysheva directly conflict with the existing Russian legislation. She writes the following about the 1944 deportation: "As regards the so-called "total" deportation, such an assertion should be, with a certain degree of caution, treated with doubt because the act of deportation was performed in line with the political will of the USSR leadership and in conformance with the historical circumstances and objective necessity of the time." Then, in order to confirm this thesis, the expert raises from the dead the most odious assertions of the Stalin's propaganda on the universal cooperation of Chechens with fascists and on the collective responsibility of the entire Chechen nation before the Soviet power.

This is where the prosecutors should have started bethinking! It is impossible that Messrs Demidov and Malyughin could not be aware of the existence of the RSFSR LAW "ON REHABILITATION OF REPRESSED NATIONS" No 11070-I of April 26, 1991 (as amended on July 1, 1993), article 1 of which clearly and unambiguously runs: "To rehabilitate all repressed nations of the RSFSR, recognizing the repressive acts against such nations as illegal and criminal." Art. 2 of the Law provides a clear definition to the repressed nations which leaves no place for excluding Chechens from this list: "It shall be recognized that repressed nations are the nations (...), with regard to which, on the basis of national or other characteristics, a state policy of slander and genocide was pursued, accompanied by their forced resettlement, cancelling national state institutions, changing national territorial borders, establishing a regime of terror and violence in the locations of forced residence."

In this connection, the following assertion by Khokhlysheva looks totally illiterate for a lawyer: ."..The author of the article again actually accuses the official authorities of committing a crime against the population residing on one of the state territories within the Russian Federation. This means that, in this connection, the Chechen people and its official representatives could file a law suit with a request to grant it." God bless you, madam, what suit, when such crimes have long been officially recognized in the Russian Federation and the Law defines the procedure of rehabilitation of their victims, including compensation of material damage, the political, social, cultural and even territorial rehabilitation! It may be that Khokhlysheva, PH doctor of jurisprudence, failed to keep the track of changes in the Russian legislation from 1991, this is her own problem, but they should have known about them in the oblast prosecutor's office! Moreover, they should know that Article 4 of the said Law establishes responsibility for its violation. "No agitation or propaganda aimed at hampering rehabilitation of repressed peoples shall be allowed. The persons committing such acts or, equally, provoking them shall be brought to responsibility according to the procedure established by the law." This is where the prosecutor's office, in conformance with the law, should have raised the issue of bringing Ms Khokhlysheva to responsibility for apologia of Stalin's repressions against peoples of Russia. I have already mentioned during the oral hearing that the Methodological Guidelines of the General Prosecutor's office directly relate "justification of genocide, deportation, repressions with regard to representatives of any nation, race or religion" to actions aimed at stirring national, racial or religious hostility. Especially, let me note, when such statements are included into a procedural document.

However, the prosecutor's office has decided otherwise. As a publicist writes to this effect, "a relay of generations" has taken place: an expert has justified Stalin's terror, while her expert opinion has opened way for further repressions. The criminal proceedings were opened against me, rather than her. This is a first paradox of the case - the investigation which has resulted in laying charges against for instigating national hostility was initiated on the basis of an opinion of a xenophobic expert.

In the operative part of her opinion when answering the questions of the instigating officer, Olga Khokhlysheva, remaining true to the principles of revolutionary expediency, has obligingly suggested that the prosecutor's office should hold me responsible under almost all articles of the Criminal Code which envisage punishment for crimes against state security, and "into the bargain " against peace and security of mankind: Article 279 "Armed rebellion"; article 280 "public calls for forced change of the RF political system" (this is how Khokhlysheva assesses the call by Zakaev not to vote for Putin during elections), Article 281 "Sabotage" (it is true that, here, jurist Khokhlysheva warns the prosecutor's office that a "broad interpretation" will be needed), Article 353 "Planning, preparation, unleashing or conducting an aggressive war "; Article 354 "Public call for unleashing an aggressive war." The makeweight included Article 130 of RF CC "Insult," and Article 139 "Insult of a public agent." Surprisingly, Khokhlysheva fails to mention seduction of under-aged, espionage and drinking blood of Christian innocents which, given a proper use of her principle of "broad interpretation", would be a worthy conclusion of a list of my misdeeds. However, Khokhlysheva modestly completed her list by Article 282, under which I am accused today. Really: "Physician, heal thyself!"

Your Honour! When getting acquainted with the case file at the prosecutor's office I read all this, to put it mildly, balderdash, and I was losing the sense of reality. It seemed to me that we lived not in 2005, but in 1937, and that it was not the quiet investigating officer Kiryukov, but Beriya together with Vyshinskiy, and there was a portrait of the brilliant leader of all times and peoples on the wall.

But if we set aside this bitter irony, the true picture is as follows. I do not doubt that the staff of the prosecutor's office includes legally literate people, with higher education and a good working record. I am sure that they were quite aware of the fact that Khokhlysheva's expert opinion has nothing to do either with Russian legislation, or science or reason. They were also aware that Khokhlysheva's assertions about Chechens and Jews are far from facilitating tolerance and friendship among people or, according to the recent statement by the oblast prosecutor made at the press-conference on the eve of Day of Prosecutor's Office Officers, "good attitude towards nationalities." The prosecutor's office staff knew very well that the text of the expert opinion is odious and were ashamed of it, because later there is not a single reference in any of the procedural document to this chimera. Except the main one - the decision on initiating criminal proceedings which was signed personally by Vladimir Demidov, state legal counsel, prosecutor of Nizhni Novgorod oblast (vol. 1, sheet 1). Prosecutor Demidov initiated criminal proceedings basing on a document which is openly xenophobic, humiliates the dignity of several nations and is legally illiterate. Why? There seem to be two options: either the Prosecutor of Nizhni Novgorod oblast shares the Stalinist and xenophobic ideas of Khokhlysheva, or the initiative to start the proceedings comes not from the Nizhni Novgorod prosecutor's office which only complied with the order. I would even say, a political order. However, one option does exclude the other.

Why am I talking about a political order? This is prompted by the logics of the events connected with the investigation of the case. Following the initiation of the criminal proceedings in question, a number of state agencies, formally not connected with each other, started a campaign aimed at stifling our organization at whatever cost and, if possible, intimidating our employees. The tax inspectorate of Nizhni Novgorod district and the main registration directorate of the Ministry of Justice simultaneously started checking the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society in February. The tax inspectorate, for the first time in the history of Russian non-government organizations, announced the target financing which we had received from the European Union and the US State Department as profits, and submitted tax claims for three years in the amount of more than one million roubles. The registration directorate could not obtain from us the documents which were being checked by the tax inspectorate at that moment and on this basis filed a civil law suit in order to liquidate our organization. In March, the FSB branch in the Chechen Republic interrogated all RChFS employees within the framework of the case in question. In so doing they tried to discredit some of them in the eyes of the local population and told their neighbours that our correspondents are ostensibly their free-lance agents. In April, my criminal file was added by a report of FSB Colonel I. A. Kornev which asserts, with a reference to some "operational data", that the "Russian-Chechen Friendship Society" at present is one of the most active associations of radical extremist views on the territory of Nizhni Novgorod oblast (vol. 1, sheet 217). Let me remind you that this happened one moth after all accusations in extremism had been successfully lifted from me and the criminal file solemnly returned back from the FSB branch to the oblast prosecutor's office, its authors. It happened six months after the International Helsinki Federation had handed us in Moscow, in the presence of three RF ombudsmen at once (the current and two former ones), an award for "a hard-edged protection of human rights and universal values."

Simultaneously with the start of investigation of this criminal case, the Nizhni Novgorod TV Channels and most local mass media unleashed a campaign of hunting the RChFS and me personally. During this time I learnt a lot of details of my biography which I had not been aware of! There were assertions that I am financed by militants, which intermitted with other assertions that, on the contrary, I finance militants. The "Volga" TV Company showed my photograph against the background of dollars, falling down like autumn leaves or against the background of soldiers' heads being cut off by bandits. One agency even assumed that I, possibly, financed the attack on Ingushetia on the night of February 21 - 22, 2004! All this nonsense was delivered with invariable references to "informed sources in law enforcement agencies," sometimes the screen showed glimpses of shadowed profiles of people introduced as "FSB officers." My extremist activity was willingly described before journalists by Konstantin Moiseyev, assistant of the oblast prosecutor. In unison with him, the same topic was covered by Andryukhin, editor of the "Novoye Delo" newspaper, the one who got a prosecutor's warning in 1999 for publishing an article titled: "In order to survive, Russia must annihilate Chechnya." Well, here is one more propagandist of a "good attitude towards nationalities", well-known in the city. Finally, in March, anonymous leaflets appeared in the district where Oksana Chelysheva, activist of our organization, resides. They contained her address, dirty insinuations and threats of physical violence. The prosecutor's office, after numerous requests of international organizations, unwillingly initiated criminal proceedings on the case but, of course, found no one. In September, leaflets with a similar text appeared at the entrance to my house. Here, the law enforcement agencies proved to be impotent for some reason, too. Incidentally, in both cases the text in the leaflets strongly resembled the stylistics typical of rhetoric of Mr Moiseyev. Finally, on September 2, the department of the MIA in Nizhni Novgorod initiated one more criminal proceedings under article 199 of the RF CC - evasion of taxes. That was despite the fact that the tax audit report by the time had been appealed against by us in the court of arbitrage.

One could assume, of course, that all these events were deadly coincidences, but I can hardly believe in such coincidences. My doubts finally dissolved when the tax inspectorate agents attached to the arbitrage file copies of the criminal case in question, namely, the notorious expert opinion of Ms Teslenko authenticated by the stamp of Oleg Kiryukov, investigating officer of the oblast prosecutor's office. The team works harmoniously, if not cleverly. So, I put this question to myself - from what heavenly heights must come an instruction so as to make all this horde roll up their sleeves and start a fight against us, including the oblast prosecutor's office with its department on major cases, FSB directorate in Nizhni Novgorod with a similar department, its own operational support and Chechen colleagues, tax inspectorate with collection orders, the Ministry of Justice with its registration directorate and, finally, the elusive punks with buckets of glue and packs of leaflets. And one more thing - this crowd scene with representatives of "indignant Soviet public" which, under the protection of militia, has been hanging around this building for a second month running, contrary to the federal law which categorically prohibits picketing of courts. And, of course, a train of TV companies and newspapers howling in unison. Who is so powerful as to be able to move, like pawns, all these ministries, departments, secret services, groups and groupings with only one aim - to stop our mouth. Whom are we disturbing?

The court is not a place for surmises and hearsay, therefore, I can not cite specific names. But for me, one thing is clear - this campaign, including the criminal case in question, serves those who are interested in continuing the war, in shedding blood in the North Caucasus and across entire Russia. Those who have acquired and continue to acquire political and financial capital from disaster. Those who, by fostering military crimes, expand terrorism and then stress the necessity of fighting this terrorism to justify limitation of democratic reforms and return of this country into the shed of servility and absence of freedom.

Any war ends with negotiations. The sooner negotiations start the fewer victims we may expect in future. This is common truth confirmed by thousands of years of human history. The country leadership and the mass media assure us that there is no war. We pay for this lie with new kidnapped or killed victims in Chechnya and new terrorist acts in Russia. The longer the war continues, the deeper we plunge into this abyss of reciprocal hatred and vengeance, into the whirlpool of violence. A few days prior to his death, Aslan Maskhadov proposed peace to the Russian president through the "Kommersant" newspaper but was treacherously killed, lured out, like his predecessor Djokhar Dudaev, for peace negotiations. Neither of them was an angel with wings and a nimbus, but one could negotiate with them. The moral code of these individuals included a notion of officer's honour, they grieved for their people and their motherland. They are now being replaced by ruthless and narrow-minded Islamic fanatics possessed with the idea of the world jihad, with whom it is a hundred times more difficult to negotiate and who are prepared for anything. They have been brought up this way by the ruthless, merciless, unjust war which plunged Chechnya into the abyss of barbarism. It is the last colonial war of the past century.

But my colleagues in RChFS and me still repeat and will go on repeating our calls for peace. We grant and will continue to grant the floor to those who move and will go on moving peaceful initiatives, whatever side of the conflict they represent and whatever label they are given by the official propaganda. We, members of Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, together with other human rights organizations of Russia, do and will continue to do everything possible to break the disgraceful wall of silence around the tormented Chechnya. We have been providing and will go on providing our compatriots and the world community with information on military crimes, whoever commits them and whatever high authorities they are protected by. We have been fighting and will go on fighting for a just and stable peace in the North Caucasus. We have been standing up and will go on standing up for our right to free and prospering motherland without wars, dictatorship and national hostility. The charge laid to me by the prosecutor's office pursues only one goal - to stop our mouth and make us keep silent.

In 1968, when Soviet troops were sent to Czechoslovakia in order to squash the Prague Spring, eight people came out into the Red Square with slogans of protest. The Soviet propaganda stigmatized them as traitors, they faced prison, camps and exile, some of them did not live to see freedom. However, those were the people who saved the honour of our nation and the honour of this country. One of them was Larissa Bogoraz whom I had the honour to meet. Shortly before her death she signed the declaration of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, our organization. I consider the attempt to resolve the issue of the status of the Chechen Republic by force as disgusting a crime of the authorities, as the Soviet aggression against Czechoslovakia. I am sure that every person who still has conscience must react to it properly.

Unfortunately, there are times in our history when being defamed by the authorities of one's own country and subjected to politically motivated persecution is not only a serious ordeal but also a great honour. The absurd charge laid to me by the prosecutor's office is a sign that we are on the right track. What happened in 1968 is happening now. I am proud of being in the same company with such worthy contemporaries as Mikhail Trepashkin, Mikhail Khodorkovskiy, Grigoriy Pasko, Alexander Nikitin. They have chosen freedom, I have made my choice, too. The prosecutor's office in the person of Mr Demidov has made it, too. Recently, he said to journalists: "I am sure that Dmitrievskiy will go to prison. I want to disillusion him - even if I am placed behind the bars, in prison I will be a hundred times more free than he at his working place."

Great Dante said: "The hottest corners of hell are reserved for those who, at the times of major moral crises, remained neutral." There is no doubt that we live through an epoch of a major moral crisis. Under the conditions when the war and the terror, brought about by it, take thousands of lives, most our fellow-countrymen remain indifferent. Many of them even are not aware that it is going on. They screen themselves from the truth because it is a bitter truth. But sooner or later the moment of truth springs on them. It is a moment when life offers a choice to a person - either he, like an ostrich, continues to cowardly hide his head in the sand in the hope that grief will never touch him and his children, or honestly face the truth. For me, such moment came in January 1995 in the streets of Grozny flooded with blood. Many of those who have given testimony here and come to support me, at different periods and under different circumstances came through their choice as well. Such choice is facing now those who were in this room during the interrogation of witnesses Kovalev, Baisaev, Kalyapin, Amirkhadjiyeva, Yusupova, Politkovskaya - because none of those present can ever claim that they heard nothing about events in Chechnya. Each person who considers himself a citizen, sooner or later must make this choice between bitter, hard and dangerous truth and comfortable, fat but deadly lie. For some people, this choice is easy like a gulp of fresh air, for others it requires great moral effort, courage and even self-denial.

Today, it is your choice as well, your Honour. I wish you courage.

Each person himself determines the degree of his moral responsibility for acts of the state of which he is a citizen. I do not doubt that such responsibility exists. I take very close to heart the lines written by my favourite poet Alexander Arkadievich Galich in the notorious 1968:

Again and again - like a thunder in the midst of idleness,
A lump in one's throat, a bullet in the barrel -
- People, our Motherland is in danger!
People, our Motherland is in danger!
Our tanks are on a foreign land!
Scoundrel roosters wail
That it is no one's fault,
But for the lies and for the sins -
It is you who must answer!
For each step and for each fight -
It is you who must answer!
Or, if not, to hell with you,
It is nothing to do with you!
Then get drunk
With a soup of lies!
But again, it is my war,
My war and my guilt,
And my death again!

Your Honour! I am only asking you to pass the ruling in conformance with the law, your internal conviction and conscience," stated Stanislav Dmitrievskiy in his last plea in court.

For reference, the "Nashi" movement and Moscow human rights activists hold pickets by the building of Soviet district court in Nizhni Novgorod where the sentence is expected to be passed soon to Stanislav Dmitrievskiy, head of the "Russian-Chechen Friendship Society."

The picket in support of Dmitrievskiy with the slogan "No strive for peace should come under trial" is being held by "Memorial," the Committee for Civil Assistance and the "Public Verdict" foundation. Svetlana Gannushkina ("Memorial") and Sergey Kovalev, chair of Russian "Memorial", have come to Nizhni Novgorod.

The picket of the "Nashi" movement against Dmitrievskiy is being held under the motto "We must remember: during 10 years 1,400 citizens of our country have been killed by terrorists," reports "Gazeta.Ru"

For reference, it is expected that today, the Soviet district court of Nizhni Novgorod will announce the verdict to Stanislav Dmitrievskiy, director of inter-regional public association "Russian-Chechen Friendship Society," accused of stirring national hostility.

Human rights activists consider that the trial of Stanislav Dmitrievskiy bears a political character, they disagree with the arguments of the prosecution and the course of the court proceedings. Having an aim to attract the public attention to the Dmitrievskiy's case, the human rights activists conduct an action of public control. After the verdict is announced, representatives of human rights organizations will hold a briefing for journalists in front of the Soviet district court building in Nizhni Novgorod.

For reference, on September 2, 2005, Dmitrievskiy was charged under article 282 of RF CC, "actions aimed at stirring hate or hostility, or at humiliation of dignity of a person or a group of persons on the basis of sex, race, nationality, attitude to religion or membership in a social group." The article prescribes a punishment up to five years of imprisonment. The prosecution asked the court for a punishment of four years in a penal colony for Stanislav Dmitrievskiy.

The criminal proceedings were initiated in January this year after the publication in "Pravozaschita" (Human Rights Protection) newspaper of the address of Aslan Maskhadov and Ahmed Zakaev with calls for a peaceful settlement of the Russian-Chechen conflict.

The publications contained sharp critics of the actions by Russian leadership, Russian armed forces and personally by President Vladimir Putin. The human rights activists believe the charges to Dmitrievskiy to be politically motivated and aimed at liquidation of the constitutional guarantee of the freedom of speech.

On November 15, "International Amnesty" made an open statement in which it expresses its concern about the pressure campaign led by various state institutions with regard to the RChFS and announced its intention to consider Dmitrievskiy prisoner of conscience in case he is convicted.