SAMODUROV DEPARTS SAKHAROV CENTER UNDER LEGAL,

C O N F I D E N T I A L MOSCOW 002582 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/28/2018 TAGS: KIRF PGOV PHUM PREL RS SOCI SUBJECT: SAMODUROV DEPARTS SAKHAROV CENTER UNDER LEGAL, FINANCIAL PRESSURE REF: 07 MOSCOW 5365 Classified By: Classified by Political Minister Counselor Alice G. Wells for reason 1.4 (d) ¶1. (C) Summary: Sakharov Center Director Yuri Samodurov quit his position after facing mounting financial shortfalls, legal difficulties, and strategic differences with the Sakharov Foundation leadership. Arguing that his fate was in the hands of a Kremlin leadership heavily influenced by the Russian Orthodox Church, Samodurov said he was dependent on the support of leading human rights activists to try and convince Medvedev to intervene in reducing any ultimate punishment. The criminal prosecution against Samodurov became more lopsided, with witnesses for the prosecution outnumbering those for the defense by 142 to 2. Samodurov hoped that the museum would again be able to attract benefactors in the wake of his departure. Abandoning Ship -------------- ¶2. (C) Sakharov Center Director Yuri Samodurov told us August 26 that he left his position at the museum because he could do nothing more to help it develop as an artistic center. Samodurov resigned from the post he held for 12 years on August 19, claiming that the art museum's financial troubles and differences in opinion with the museum's trustees encouraged his departure. Samodurov's decision to quit came after the June 30 decision of the museum's constituents not to present a sequel to the controversial exhibit "Forbidden Art - 2006" (reftel) that led to a criminal prosecution against Samodurov and exhibit curator Andrei Yerofeev under Article 282 of the Criminal Code for the incitement of racial, national, and religious hatred. Yerofeev was subsequently fired from his position as curator at the renowned Tretyakov Gallery. ¶3. (C) Samodurov lamented that the Sakharov Center had come under negative scrutiny during his tenure. In addition to the Russian Orthodox Church's (ROC) public criticism, he believed that the ROC played an unhelpful role behind the scenes in his legal battle. He added that the museum had entered a period of stagnation, suffering from poor finances and a fear of government repression, and suggested that he, like all museum directors, wanted to give the art a chance to speak for itself while also balancing the museum's budget. Recent legal action and financial hardship proved too great an obstacle for him to continue. Samodurov claimed to have no future plans, nor to have heard additional details about his court case, even though he expected more details to emerge in the coming weeks. He also noted that the Board of Directors for the Sakharov Foundation, led by Edward Kline, had not asked him to leave; he chose to depart on his own accord. Numerous press outlets covered his departure, including the Kommersant daily which said Samodurov had grown quite nervous about the lawsuit. Financial Problems -------------- ¶4. (C) Samodurov told us in an earlier July 30 meeting that the museum faced extremely difficult financial straits. The Sakharov Center operated on a budget of USD 450,000 per year; however, Samodurov complained that the institute had managed to raise only an estimated USD 100,000 to that point in 2008 for the Center's archives (Note: he deemed the archives to be noncontroversial). As Russia's only non-governmental and non-commercial museum and community center, the Sakharov Center consistently needed wealthy patrons to maintain operations, conduct research projects, and house permanent exhibitions. Part of the problem, Samodurov noted, stemmed from the U.S.- based Sakharov Foundation Board of Director's decision to reduce funding drastically in the wake of the 2007 presentation of "Forbidden Art - 2006." Additionally, he mentioned that fewer international agencies offered grants to the Sakharov Center, probably due to their reluctance to be associated with an organization in poor favor with the government. Since the museum did not charge an admission fee, Samodurov knew it would need to fire the majority of its staff, including the guards and maintenance personnel charged to keep the museum running. Legal Troubles -------------- ¶5. (C) Samodurov acknowledged that human rights advocate and Moscow Helsinki Group leader Lyudmila Alekseyeva offered her assistance for fundraising purposes in 2007. Samodurov told us that Alekseyeva had written letters to the ambassadors of numerous European countries, including Portugal, Spain, Norway, Estonia, Italy, and Germany in recent weeks, soliciting their support, but with mixed results. He also noted that SPS Leader Boris Nemtsov had appealed to two undisclosed billionaires in RUSSIA for their patronage, and added that he hoped for help from Garry Kasparov. That said, he doubted any significant financial assistance from outside donors would be forthcoming. ¶6. (C) Samodurov maintained that the court case filed against him for the 2007 exhibition would not be decided by the court itself, but by Medvedev. Drawing a comparison to his 2005 legal proceedings, in which the government reduced his penalty to 100,000 rubles, Samodurov stated that Putin himself authorized the reduced punishment after receiving several appeals for leniency from human rights advocates. In late July, Samodurov received a legal document from the prosecution detailing the case's status. Samodurov told us about two interesting items from the prosecution's case: first, the prosecution admitted that no victims existed in the case; second, the procuracy had identified 142 witnesses for the prosecution, but only two witnesses for the defense, both of whom served on the Board of Directors for the Sakharov Center. Samodurov asked for an explanation on both, but the prosecution simply told him that they were "just doing their job." Samodurov reluctantly conceded that in a rigged legal proceeding in Russia, one does not really need any witnesses anyway -- the result will be what the authorities want. Again facing prison time, Samodurov believed the best course of action to avoid imprisonment would be a personal letter to Medvedev in conjunction with additional appeals from Alekseyeva and Lev Ponomaryov. Comment -------------- ¶7. (C) Samodurov's departure from the museum is emblematic of the reduced government tolerance for dissent, and the inability of civil society and the Sakharov Center to build a constituency for their work. The Center's difficulties were compounded by the provocative nature of some of their exhibits, which often differed from mainstream tastes and became the easy targets of antics, including outcry from the Russian Orthodox Church. BEYRLE