DAS KRAMER'S MEETINGS WITH HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS

C O N F I D E N T I A L MOSCOW 000747 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/18/2018 TAGS: PHUM KDEM PGOV SOCI RS SUBJECT: DAS KRAMER'S MEETINGS WITH HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS REF: MOSCOW 703 Classified By: Pol M/C Alice G. Wells. Reasons: 1.4 (b,d). ¶1. (C) Summary: Both governmental and non-governmental human rights figures offered DAS David Kramer March 16 their views on the state of human rights in Russia and prospects for improvement during a Medvedev presidency. They variously identified the state of the judiciary and law enforcement (Ombudsman Lukin),xenophobia (Moscow Helsinki Group's Lyudmila Alekseyeva),corruption (Lukin and Transparency International's Yelena Panfilova),and reduced political rights as the most pressing problems, and were generally reluctant, with the possible exception of Lukin, to forecast a change for the better under Medvedev. End summary. Xenophobia -------------- ¶2. (C) Moscow Helsinki Group Chairwoman Lyudmila Alekseyeva told DAS Kramer that the most serious human rights problem in Russia was xenophobia (reftel). With increased migration from the Caucasus and Central Asia and the continued flirtation of some politicians with nationalist sentiments, the number of murders and attacks on non-Russians had increased. Anti-semitism, which was the "main problem after World War II" had receded with Jewish emigration and the emergence, in the minds of Russian nationalists of a greater danger: migrants from the South. Going hand-in-hand with suspicions of southerners was a crackdown across Russia on Muslims, she said. The number of calls to Alekseyeva's offices reporting the arrest of Muslims on terrorism charges had increased significantly, and the terms imposed on some of the alleged offenders were long; from 8 - 14 years, Alekseyeva said. Abuses by Law Enforcement Officials -------------- ¶3. (C) In his March 16 session with DAS Kramer, GOR Human Rights Ombudsman Lukin summed up the main findings of his office's 2007 human rights report on Russia. Every second complaint that the Ombudsman received in 2007 was about abuses --from bribe-taking to physical abuse, to alleged unlawful arrest, or mistreatment in prison by law enforcement officials. Complaints about "social" issues --housing, education, pensions-- had receded from previous years, and there had been "very few" complaints about the political process, and "almost no" complaints about the elections themselves. ¶4. (C) Lukin's efforts to bring the complaints he had received to the attention of the various law enforcement agencies had met with varying responses. The Ministry of Internal Affairs had responded best to the report's conclusions. An Internal Affairs representative had requested the files, and had promised to answer all of the complaints filed. The Federal Prison System Service had been "confrontational" when contacted by Lukin's office. Lukin found the Service's reaction "odd," as considerable progress had been made in certain areas. Many new prisons which meet European standards had been built, and although an increase in the number of prisoners meant the system remained overcrowded, the amount of space allotted each prisoner was creeping toward four square meters. ¶5. (C) During the current "transition" period, many of the existing prisons remained in operation and the treatment of prisoners in some of them "verged on torture," said Lukin, carefully choosing his words. He planned to remain engaged on the issue and would travel to Mordoviya --a region alleged to have some of the worst prisons-- the week of March 24. He had earlier visited "Kresty" prison in St. Petersburg, where he had discovered that the prison hospital was grossly inadequate and that prisoners in significant numbers had cut their arms with razor blades in protest at their conditions. Public Assembly/Demonstrations -------------- ¶6. (C) Although the Ombudsman's office had received few complaints, Lukin reminded DAS Kramer that he had issued a special report on demonstrations, and that little had changed since that time. As he had in the report, Lukin maintained that the law on demonstrations and meetings was "quite good." As written, it did not require those intending to demonstrate to receive permission from local governments. They were required only to notify the government of their intention to demonstrate, except when a demonstration was planned close to prisons, the Presidential Administration, and "a few other places." If another group planned a demonstration for the same time and place, the local government was required to offer an alternative site. As he had in his June report, Lukin told DAS Kramer that those violating the law --local governments-- should be punished. He mentioned in particular the Moscow City Administration. ¶7. (C) Lukin and Alekseyeva also criticized those who attempt to ensnare individual pickets. (An individual picketer need not notify the city authorities of his intentions.) He had interceded in 2007 on behalf of political gadfly Viktor Shenderovich who had been set up, when someone joined his individual picket, making it a "meeting," and causing the police to detain him. (The same has happened recently with political activists Masha Gaidar and Ilya Yashin.) The Judiciary -------------- ¶8. (C) Lukin highlighted the judiciary as one of the "key problems" and told DAS Kramer he was gratified that President-elect Medvedev had highlighted it in his February 15 Krasnoyarsk speech. Lukin saw a direct connection between Russia's dysfunctional court system and abusive behavior by law enforcement officials. Both fields were plagued by corruption as well, he said. He hoped that Medvedev would seriously address the problem during his presidency and guessed that his background as a lawyer provided him with additional incentive to do so. Yabloko's Maksim Reznik -------------- ¶9. (C) Alekseyeva described demonstrations as the last resort for politicians denied any voice in the political system, and on that ground was worried about the arrest of Yabloko St. Petersburg Chairman Maksim Reznik. Reznik's arrest and continued detention had sparked much unhappiness in the human rights community and beyond. Alekseyeva noted the letter sent by Duma Deputies Oksana Dmitrieva, Ivan Grachyov, and others. ¶10. (C) Lukin was more judicious in his comments on the Reznik case. He had spoken to representatives of the St. Petersburg Investigative Committee, and many others. It appeared that Reznik and another colleague from Yabloko had left Yabloko headquarters at March 2 at 0200. Reznik's colleague had begun to harass a woman in a car parked in front of a police precinct station that is adjacent to Yabloko's headquarters, and had even broken a car window in the fracas. When the husband of the woman involved emerged from police headquarters, a fight ensued, and at least one police officer was struck on the face and kicked. Lukin allowed that there could have been a provocation, but guessed that Reznik and his friend's drunken state had considerably aggravated matters. He agreed that, nevertheless, Reznik should not remain in jail pending trial, and told DAS Kramer he had said as much to the authorities in St. Petersburg. Aleksanyan: Treatment Good -------------- ¶11. (C) Lukin reprised for DAS Kramer his impressions of his visit to the hospital, at the beginning of March, with members of the Public Chamber Genri Reznik and Nikolay Svanidze, where former Yukos Vice President Vasiliy Aleksanyan is being treated. The delegation was given complete access to Aleksanyan and the hospital staff. Aleksanyan was suffering from HIV, but did not have tuberculosis, as reported in the press. The conditions in the hospital, Lukin said, were "not bad; better than those afforded most patients of Russian hospitals." He was no longer handcuffed, Lukin said, although he agreed with Alekseyeva that it was a hardship that Aleksanyan was not allowed to shower every day. Alekseyeva thought that the state of Aleksanyan's health should mean that he would not have to stand trial, and should be released. ¶12. (C) Lukin refused to speculate on what role Aleksanyan might be slated to play in continuing efforts against former Yukos owner Khodorkovskiy. Asked by DAS Kramer for his estimation of the odds of Khodorkovskiy being released before his current term expired, Lukin guessed that an amnesty would require that Khodorovskiy acknowledge his guilt first, something he was unlikely to do. Ponomarev: No Serious Consequences -------------- ¶13. (C) Alekseyeva continued to maintain that Federal Prison System Director Kalinin's libel case against "For Human Rights" Director Lev Ponomarev would "not have serious consequences," although she acknowledged that there was a certain amount of psychological pressure on Ponomarev. "We have all criticized Kalinin for many things," she said, and she agreed with Lukin that in the last year the number of complaints about the prison system had increased, and included allegations of torture. Lukin had no substantive comment about the Ponomarev case. The Scientologists -------------- ¶14. (C) Alekseyeva traced an increase in pressure on the Scientologists and other non-traditional sects. Some of the cases involved real estate and could be the by-product of a commercial, Russia-wide struggle over property. In other cases, local authorities appeared to be denying the Scientologists registration. Alekseyeva intended to attend a March 19 roundtable, convened by the Scientologists, on their problems. (Embassy will also be in attendance, and will report in more depth on the problems septel.) Limonov's National Bolshevik Party -------------- ¶15. (C) Alekseyeva talked at length about cases faced by members of Eduard Limonov's banned National Bolshevik Party. She noted, as have others, an evolution in the party. Party veterans were "fascists," who believed in the use of "crude force" and "terrible slogans." In the last year or so, Limonov had changed his organization's vector and its newest members are "better educated" youth from "good families." Alekseyeva thought that each case had to be addressed on its merits. She was investigating the current case, in which six members had been accused of hooliganism in connection with a scuffle that occurred in April 2006, allegedly between Bolshevik Party members and representatives of the pro-Kremlin youth organization "Mestnye." The six are slated to be sentenced to terms ranging from three to five years on March 24, according to a March 15 article in the independent daily Kommersant. Lukin had no comment on the case. He noted that he could only act when asked by those concerned to intercede, and that had not happened with the case of the six. Lukin also noted that, although the sentence seemed harsh, the law allowed for five year sentences for hooliganism. He could not, as Ombudsman, contest sentences provided for by law. Andrey Piontkovskiy -------------- ¶16. (C) Both Alekseyeva and Lukin seemed unworried about the fate of Piontkovskiy, who is the subject of a continuing effort to convict him of extremism in connection with his writings about, among others, President Putin. Alekseyeva agreed that Piontkovskiy was being "persecuted" for expressing his opinions, but doubted that the case would gain much traction. Lukin had to be reminded by one of his aides that they had read the alleged, offending statements in Piontkovskiy's book, and he then agreed that they did not seem to violate the law on extremism. It seemed clear that both felt that the case against Piontkovskiy was not worrisome, at least against the background of other human rights problems in Russia. The Ombudsman's Office and the Moscow Helsinki Group -------------- ¶17. (C) Alekseyeva, who at age 81 is in the middle of a long recovery from a broken hip sustained at the end of December, marveled at the ability of her organization to operate. The NGO law had caused no problems for MHG, she was frequently visited by GOR officials who spoke candidly but not for attribution about human rights problems, and those same officials took her phone calls, listened to her complaints and, in some cases, sought to remedy them. Alekseyeva put MHG in the same charmed category as the radio station Ekho Moskvy, the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, and REN TV, which seemed to be immune from pressure from the authorities. She did not know what to attribute her success to. ¶18. (C) Lukin, in wrapping up his meeting with DAS Kramer, noted that he had one year remaining in his term. He thought there was now more respect and understanding for the role played by the Ombudsman, and the his office had somewhat more influence than it had when he began his term. Lukin did not plan to lobby for a second term, but indicated he would consider an offer to stay, should President Medvedev offer him the chance. Corruption -------------- ¶19. (C) In a roundtable with DAS Kramer March 16, the Human Rights Watch's Tanya Lokshina, Transparency International's Yelena Panfilova, and Center for the Development of Democracy's Yuriy Dzhibladze seemed to be of two minds about the future of corruption. They predicted continued arrests, because "the system is built on the fear factor," but they doubted there would be a systematic attempt to attack the problem since it, along with dossiers of compromising material, were the glue that held the current system together. ¶20. (C) Still, they thought that one impulse for reducing corruption significantly might be the need for liberalization in order to make Putin and his team more acceptable in the West, and less vulnerable to international corruption cases should they wish to travel or buy property abroad once leaving office. Driving such an effort to attack corruption might be an awareness that Russia's plentiful natural resources are not inexhaustible, and that the current way of life cannot be sustained. Also possibly acting as a stimulus was the need to get the regions where corruption, in the form of stealing Federal funds dispersed in support of the national priority projects, was epidemic. The Future Under Medvedev -------------- ¶21. (C) Lukin described himself as "carefully optimistic" about prospects for human rights under Medvedev. He had known Medvedev when he was head of the Presidential Administration, and thought that he would be less neuralgic about human rights than Putin although, Lukin hastened to add, he had not been criticized once by Putin during his four years as Ombudsman. ¶22. (C) Lokshina, Panfilova, and Dzhibladze predicted continuity under Medvedev. All pointed to what they thought were signs of "staggering" insecurity in the Kremlin, among them the continued harassment of Maksim Reznik, in spite of Putin's promise to "look into the case" when asked in a meeting during the week of March 9 by Yabloko Chairman Yavlinskiy. ¶23. (C) Still, in other comments, they joined others here in hoping that the succession might usher in changes. While dismissing Medvedev's comments on the importance of the rule of law as a re-hash of comments made by Putin years ago, they freely admitted that "(we) are cynical," and a better-then-expected outcome is possible. That Medvedev's self-evident comment, in his February 15 Krasnoyarsk speech, that "freedom is better than non-freedom" should get so much media attention showed how much work remained to be done. In the end, they thought, it would be important to watch what Medvedev does in his first months in office before drawing conclusions. ¶24. (U) DAS Kramer cleared this message. BURNS