RUSSIA:
TREASON ACCUSATIONS AGAINST SUTYAGIN IS A
VIOLATION OF FREE EXPRESSION
The IHF has sent a letter to the Director of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) and to the Kaluga Regional FSB Department, asking for the release of scientist Igor Sutyagin, who has been detained for almost nine months while "high treason" charges are under investigation.
Sutyagin is accused of having allegedly passed state secrets to foreign citizens. According to the IHF, he never had access to state secrets. The IHF wrote:
"Dear Sirs,
We are writing to you on behalf of the Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG) and the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights (IHF), an association comprising 39 Helsinki Committees and cooperating organizations in North America; Western, Central, and Eastern Europe; and Central Asia. We wish to draw your attention to the case of Igor Sutyagin, a scientist from Obninsk, currently kept in detention in isolation wards pending trial. He is accused of high treason for allegedly having passed to foreign citizens -- and even to foreign intelligence agencies -- state secrets regarding Russian military capability.
According to our information, Igor Sutyagin never had access to state secrets. All his work and cooperation with foreign nationals was carried out in the open, and only material accessible to the public was used. It also seems that institutions such as the USA/Canada Institute in Moscow also were involved in the work done by Sutyagin. There is very little that seems to suggest any wrongdoing, let alone the very serious crime of high treason.
Igor Sutyagin has already spent almost nine months in detention. FSB officers have at the time of detention denied him the right to inform his relatives and counsel of his arrest. The FSB has stated on television that Sutyagin was a traitor even before the investigation began. Such accusations and comments would be legitimate only after a guilty verdict has been reached by a court.
It seems, at the same time, that there are no serious grounds for Sutyagin’s detention. The fact that the investigators so far have not been able to build up a case is not a valid reason to submit a person to the inhuman treatment he suffers in the detention facility. Reports about Sutyagin’s conditions in detention reveal gross violations of the European Convention on Human Rights. His health might already have been permanently damaged.
In view of the above, we are asking you kindly to review the case and to secure that:
1. Igor Sutyagin is immediately released from detention;
2. the relevant authorities speed up the investigation in this case; and
compliance with the human rights obligations assumed by Russia as a member of the OSCE
and the Council of Europe, take place.
The IHF hopes that the authorities will act upon our request and thus show that reform has taken root in Russia and that progress has been made in the fields of human rights and the rule of law."
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Source: IHF, Moscow Helsinki Group (MHG)
For more information please contact Ludmilla Alexeyeva, president of the IHF and chief of the Moscow Helsinki Group, +7-095-2076069; Aaron Rhodes, IHF executive director, +43-1-408 8822 / +43-676-635 6612; Brigitte Dufour, IHF deputy executive director, +43-1-408 8822 / +43-676 –690 2457; or Vladmir Weissman, IHF regional coordinator, +45-21-22 77 26
RUSSIA (CHECHNYA) / THE NETHERLANDS:
NETHERLANDS GOVERNMENT SHOULD SUPPORT PARLIAMENTARY INITIATIVE FOR INTERSTATE COMPLAINTS
On 15 May, the IHF sent an open letter to J.J. van Aartsen, Netherlands minister of foreign affairs. The organization urged the Netherlands government to support the proposal to lodge an interstate complaint against the Russian Federation in the European Court of Human Rights.
"When Russia sought admission to the Council of Europe, it was argued that inclusion in the Council would bring it under the influence of European mechanisms to protect human rights. Now is the time to make good on that promise," wrote the IHF.
That Russia has egregiously violated the European Convention on Human Rights by its conduct of the war in Chechnya cannot be rationally disputed. No state of emergency was ever declared, and no derogations were requested under article 15 of the Convention, which therefore is applicable in its entirety.
The Council of Europe is now being tested as much as at any time in its history; its integrity is at stake, with implications for the future of human rights on this continent. "Will the citizens of Europe have faith in the Council and in the effectiveness of the Convention if a member state's massive transgressions are not even investigated by the European Court," asked the IHF.
The IHF said it deeply admires the leadership of the Dutch Parliament in this matter, which is a great credit to the moral foundations of its society. The government should embrace this position, and in so doing it will affirm its commitment to the rule of law and its solidarity with citizens throughout Europe who expect international institutions to do what they are intended to do: to protect their rights.
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Source: IHF
For more information please contact the IHF, tel. +43-1-408-8822, e-mail office@ihf-hr.org