About situation in Russian militia

On the eve of the professional holiday of Russian militia the next celebrated scandal flared up: senior operative of operative-investigation department of Directorate of home affairs (UVD) for Novorossiysk Alexey Dymovsky addressed the prime-minister Vladimir Putin on the Internet several days ago with a statement concerning numerous abuses and breaches of law in the UVD he works in and requested a personal meeting with Putin. Since that moment the events were progressing with kaleidoscopic speed. The minister of home affairs Rashid Nurgaliyev assigned an inspection in UVD of Novorossiysk. General S. Kucheruk fired A. Dymovsky who was on the sicklist during recent two months. Together with inspections executed concerning the facts stated in the video-appeal, institution of proceedings against Dymovsky for calumny is prepared.

Meanwhile pickets in his defense take place in Krasnodar: Moscow colleagues are going to support the disgraced militiaman. Certainly thecase of major Dymovsky requires thorough inspection. The Department of staff security of Ministry of home affairs (MVD) informed that on the moment of publication of video-appeal of major Alexey Dymovsky the inspection was conducted regarding him in connection with rejection of calling the suspects of drug trade to criminal account. Krasnodar militia bosses changed the points at once to some human rights organizations financed by the West - they say they used major Dymovsky in their games. Such an accusation is most banal and just strengthens the trust towards Dymovsky’s statements; unfortunately the militia bosses look for external enemies instead of reorganizing their work radically.

No doubt hundreds militiamen could find themselves in the role of A. Dymovsky: it is well-known how bad the things are in militia department. Almost every day we hear about the crimes of people who must protect the public order, about wildest forms of corruption, about tortures and humiliations over the detained. The sources in the ministry informed the press with pride more than once that “the structure of the ministry is actually constructed anew to break forever the tie between the militiaman of the past and new defender of legality and order for the population”, that “reform of MVD the draft of which had been prepared by the closest milieu of the president, would be revolutionary”. Change of six deputy ministers during recent years caused a hope for real revision of staff policy in the ministry that should create the new image of militia. Some scandals that became broadly known (in particular, the case of major Yevsyukov) made the press and the public pay special attention to unlawful actions of MVD employees. And immediately MVD started speaking again about resolute steps for cleaning the department from “werewolves with shoulder straps” and about thorough checkup of all the persons employed to MVD; again several high-ranking officers were dismissed. Several months passed and again, like as a mockery, numerous reports about crimes of people with militia shoulder straps followed. And they dealt with cynical crimes being horrible due to their inhumanity, immorality and sometimes absurdness.

Here are just several recent examples:

– The office of public prosecutor of Transbaikalian region was checking the fact of stealing of two sheep from shepherd stand by militia employees that was presented by these employees later as a common purchase contract;

– Minister of home affairs of Buryatia Viktor Sosyura and acting chief of directorate for tax crimes of republican MVD Andrey Shurupov were detained on suspicion of complicity in smuggling.

– In Perm the militia, despite the court decision on protection of witnesses, refused to guard the family of Yurtayevs that suffered from arbitrariness of law-enforcement body employees. Being feared for their lives, law-abiding citizens of Russia had to leave the country;

– In Izhevsk the court found two law-enforcers guilty of brutal rape of 18-year-old girl and set a real punishment for them.

And there are hundreds cases like these.

It is no coincidence that an initiative of Perm human rights activists appeared, and on October 21 they started a public campaign “For complete overhaul of militia” and were the first to put their signatures under appeal to the President of Russia. The appeal published on the Internet is signed by residents of the whole country. One can’t say more exactly than the Perm human rights activists did: “Impotence of MVD in front of the criminality and militia arbitrariness towards us citizens and militia corruption that became a branch of Russian shadow economy are equally unacceptable for us. We know that many honest and selfless people serve in militia, and they work for our safety, but unfortunately these are not them who determine the situation. Russian militia needs complete overhaul: new walls, bridging and seriously strengthened foundation! We are persuaded: “we have no other militia”. This means it should be created! So – let’s turn November 10, 2009 into the birthday of new Russian militia. Really new, another militia is necessary for the country!”.

On the Day of militia let’s congratulate all the militia employees who do their duty honestly and sometimes with risk for their lives. But without radical reconstruction of the whole MVD system, without turning it into efficient body of protection of the society and of every person, even personal honor and courage of separate militiamen would change nothing, and we would still be the hostages of unrestrained criminality.

Statement of Moscow bureau for human rights relating the Day of political repressions

On October 30 the country recalls annually the victims of political repressions. This day of grieve is unique in the world practice: in the history of 20th century maybe only in two countries – USSR and Cambodia – the rulers eliminated their peoples methodically. In the USSR this elimination was of truly cosmic scale. Even the fascist Germany that brought incalculable misfortunes to the peoples of Europe “yields” to the USSR regarding elimination of its own people: while the maniac Hitler eliminated the citizens of Germany basing upon their party (Communists) and ethnic belonging (Jews, Gypsies), their sexual orientation (homosexuals), there were no restrictions for Stalin at all. Millions of peasants, workers, politicians, scientists, actors, sportsmen were eliminated and sent to concentration camps – one can hardly find a group of Soviet population that would not suffer enormous losses. And hundreds thousand and millions victims of Bolshevik repressions must be added to these figures.

Alas, the level of historical memory in Russia and level of comprehension of the whole Lenin’s-Stalin’s epoch does not correspond anyhow to the scale of political repressions in the USSR (according to some estimates, they caused the death of up to 60 mln people). Radical de-Stalinization of the society was not conducted similar to de-Nazification in Germany, Lenin’s and Stalin’s regimes did not get a definition of being unambiguously criminal.

Moreover, very few of today’s youth have even approximate understanding of the scale of political repressions during the Soviet time. The person and activity of Stalin are treated as “contradictory”, services of Stalin-commander-in-chief, Stalin-captain of the industry are asserted. Busts to Stalin are installed, and underground station with Stalin’s slogan is restored. According to interrogation of Levada-Center, just a little more than 38% think that Iosif Stalin was a state criminal, and 12% of the interrogated do not absolutely agree with this thesis. Finally, the project “Name of Russia” became the brightest index of the mind confusion in Russia as Stalin occupied the third place there and fell short of very few votes to occupy the first one.

And it is significant that just 500 people assembled near Solovki stone in Moscow on October 30.

Lack of historical memory is not just immoral but also dangerous – that is it that causes the possibility of repeating the recurrences of the past, forms pro-Stalin moods of the youth closing in with Nazi ones. In Russia where the level of xenophobia, intolerance and political radicalism is high, such moods may provoke provocative actions with unpredictable consequences.

And for this very reason it is extremely important for the leaders of the country to mark the position of Russia in this problem and thus mark the vector for the future.

On October 30 the President of RF noted on his website how large-scale the terror in 1937-1938 was: “During twenty pre-war years … the Cossacks were practically eliminated.  The peasantry was subject to “dispossession of kulaks” and exsanguinated. Both intellectuals and workers and military men were subject to political persecutions. Representatives of absolutely all the religions were subject to persecutions”, and how important is to remember the tragedy of Soviet regime: “memory about national tragedies is as sacred as the memory about victories. And it is extremely important that young people should have not just historical knowledge but also civil feelings. They should be capable to empathize emotionally with one of the greatest tragedies in the history of Russia” and characterized exactly the regretful situation with comprehension of lessons of the past: “almost 90% of young people at the age of 18-24 could not even give the names of well-known people who suffered or perished during those years from repressions”.

But again the name of the main criminal was not heard in the statement – Stalin, and his predecessor – Lenin. We heard again that “everything is not so simple here” Again Leninism and Stalinism were not called criminal regimes and condemned finally and for good.

Until this is not done, one can hardly hope for establishment of real democracy in Russia.

MBHR representatives spoke in the “School of tolerance”

Director of MBHR Alexander Brod and executive director of MBHR Natalia Rykova took part in the 2nd All-Russian youth camp “School of tolerance” that passed on October 25-30 in the Moscow region within implementation of activities in the sphere of state ethnic policy. The ministry of regional development of RF was the organizer of activity with support of international fund “Russians”.

More than 100 participants from federal districts of Russian Federation took part in the work of the School.

Conduction of the School was aimed at exchange of experience of young leaders of regional youth associations and student activists of institutions of higher education of Russia in the issues of preventing extremism in youth environment, training in various forms of work with youth for development of tolerance, and increase of social and civil activity of young generation in the field of regulating interethnic and inter-religious relations.

The School activities were participated by the heads of federal executive power bodies, Federal Assembly of Russian Federation, Public chamber of Russian Federation, representatives of political, public, youth and religious organizations and specialists in interethnic relationship problems.

A. Brod and N. Rykova delivered a lecture about prevention of youth extremism in Russia noting that urgency of problem of extremism in the youth environment is determined not just by its danger for public order but also by the fact that this criminal phenomenon has a property to develop into more serious crimes such as murders, causing grave bodily injuries, and mass disturbances. Due to this, prevention of group extremism in the youth environment acquired especially significant and urgent character at present.

Statement of Moscow bureau for human rights concerning attempts of self-immolation that became more frequent in Russia

Attempts of self-immolation became regular in Russia. What makes the person commit suicide, and also choose its such a demonstrative form? Because self-immolation is not just an agonizing kind of death but it also causes usually the hard psychological trauma of the people around.

These are seemingly the very demonstrative character and shocking affect that are the principal motivation of self-killers when they choose the form of losing their lives. No doubt mentally sick people form considerable number of such self-killers. Such actions are often committed in the state of heavy alcoholic intoxication. But the history knows the cases when self-immolation was committed with political purposes: in 1969 in Prague the students Jan Palach and Jan Zajic committed self-immolation with interval of one month as a sign of protest against Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia, in 2005 two Israelis committed self-immolation as a sign of protest against ejection of Gush-Katif residents, several years ago three citizens of China burned themselves down as a sign of protest against political repressions. In 2007 the activists of youth “Apple” I. Yashin and A. Shurshev committed a “symbolic self-immolation” near the Kremlin walls as a sign of protest against results of election.

Reports about threats of self-immolation are often heard, and they became an efficient tool of protest themselves. Thus, not long ago such threats came from two employees of First TV channel that were fired unfairly as they thought.

Self-immolations are committed by people due to despair – they get no social payments, loose they apartments.

How the acts of conscious self-immolation of a person who was really brought to despair or chose an extreme form of demonstration of his social-political position to the society, can be distinguished from the actions of a mentally sick person? And is this border really so vague? Are there no different ways of combat for their rights, standing for political interests but suicide?

It’s hard to make a final conclusion about motivations of people from regular reports about self-immolations in Russia. But one thing is obvious – social-economic problems and psychological climate are hard in the country and potential possibility of suicides, in particular self-immolations, is high.

This is the hardest atmosphere in the army: on October 25 employees of Federal service of guards managed to prevent a self-immolation of a woman who wanted to attract attention to the problems of her son in this way – he serves in the army and according to his mother is permanently subject to humiliations on the part of colleagues and command of the unit.

This is also the problem of numerous people who are socially unadapted and deprived of accommodation: on October 22 a 30-year-old outcast, native of Buryatia, tried to burn himself at Forehead place trying to attract attention of authorities to the problems of homeless people.

This is the distrust towards judicial bodies and impossibility to obtain someone’s rights within the legal field: late in 2007 a resident of Chuvashia tried to commit self-immolation at the Red square protesting against the court decision.

Lack of social protection, of fulfillment of political rights and freedoms, unemployment, low salaries, extensive hard drinking – this everything, like many other reasons, acts oppressively upon the psychic of people. The situation can be improved just on the way of constructing democratic, economically strong and socially-orientated state.

About results of election of October 11

According to the report of website “Gazeta.ru”, a group of experts that studied the results of election using special mathematic method of estimation of possible falsifications basing upon data about attendance, came to most alarming conclusions: attendance at the election in Moscow was overstated by 13% and the indices of other parties were seriously understated.

During the election numerous reports about the infringements came including those about traditional methods of juggling – throwing-in of ballot papers, “carousels” (same voters vote several times at various polling stations), re-writing of final records.

Except Moscow, there are serious doubts concerning reliability of election results in Astrakhan, Derbent and some cities of Moscow region.

The story is revealing at 192nd polling station of Khamovnichesky district of Moscow where the leader of “Apple” party Sergey Mitrokhin and his family voted. One can hardly suppose that the Mitrokhins family voted not for “Apple” but for Communists, “United Russia” or any other party. Nevertheless, according to the record of election committee, no votes were cast for “Apple”, and at the same time no ballot papers were acknowledged invalid. It’s interesting what will be the excuse of election committee: that they lost ballot papers of Mitrokhin and his household? In any case the situation was so absurd that the court to which the “Apple” representatives addressed cancelled the results of voting at the polling station and obliged the election committee of Khamovnichesky district to conduct the calculation of votes again.

Moscow city election committee also reviewed the decisions on the complaints of “Apple” about results of voting at 18 polling station else. Besides, 225 copies of records were handed over to Moscow city election committee that were formalized with gross violation of electoral legislation in the opinion of the “Apple” – for example, mandatory information lacked in them (like information about complaints submitted to the committee); some of them were not properly certified.

The courts will have to examine this, and responsibility and activity of political parties, human rights activists and journalists is most important for analysis of election held.

Resolution of Moscow bureau for human rights concerning draft law of RF “On introducing amendments into the Federal law “On freedom of conscience and on religious associations” and into the Code of administrative delinquencies of Russian Federation”.

On October 13, 2009 the Draft law of RF “On introducing amendments into the Federal law “On freedom of conscience and on religious associations” and into the Code of administrative delinquencies of Russian Federation” was published.

The bill includes a complex of amendments to the Federal law on freedom of conscience and on religious associations adopted in September 1997.

Some amendments look most useful and no doubt improve the law. Thus, new edition of item 2 of clause 7 looks most urgent. This clause stated earlier only the right of citizens who formed a religious group to notify local authorities about this fact. Nothing was said either about the form of notification or about the time in which the registration body must confirm the fact of notification. In the new edition the contents of notification is developed, and it is also noted that the territorial body “sends (directs) the document confirming the fact of receiving notification about creation of religious group and start of its activity to the religious group in three-day term since the day of receiving the notification”. Thus, possibility of bureaucratic procrastination and arbitrariness of officials decreases considerably due to new edition.

At the same time some of proposed amendments can’t seem but absurd. Thus, it is proposed to supplement the clause 9 (“Creation of religious organizations”) as follows: “Persons convicted by the court for incitement of interethnic and inter-religious dissension or other crimes of extremist character can’t be founders, members and participants of a religious organization”. It results from this wording of the clause that for example a person being in imprisonment and especially one who served his punishment and came to the faith can not just be a founder of a religious organization (for example, Orthodox parish) but even be its member – i.e. be a member of a religious community! Such a clause not just breaks elementary human rights but also contradicts the principal religious postulates about possibility of repentance for the person and of getting salvation in religious life.

Proposed clause 181 about missionary activity looks most strange. It is well-known that in many religious denominations the missionary activity is the part-and-parcel of activity of followers of this denomination and is caused by its creed itself. It results from the clause, for example, that people who distribute the Bible in the streets and explain the essence of their faith to the ones who wish must have corresponding certificate that they have a right to do this – and availability of such a certificate is primary to the attitude towards religious duty. And again, it follows from item 3 of this clause that persons who served their punishment have no right to tell about their coming to religious faith! Besides, item 5 of clause 181 reproduces the traditional shortcoming of existing Federal law on freedom of conscience – definitions “psychological pressure”, “manipulation of conscience” are so vague that practically any religious activity falls under them including current practice of so-called “traditional” religions.

Further, is the sermon on the radio or TV channels a missionary activity? No doubt of it, and it falls indirectly under prohibition of items 4, 6, 7 of clause 5 as the TV program is broadcast onto the objects of other religious associations, onto kindergartens, hospitals, boarding schools, and buildings of state structures. The absurd situation takes place when, according to the bill, any religious programs on the electronic mass media should be prohibited. Equally the fact of sale of a newspaper publishing the religious sermon to a person under age automatically falls under punishment envisaged by clause 5.26.1 for involvement of persons under age into activity of a religious association.

And finally, it’s a pity that among the others no amendments are envisaged for the preamble of the Federal law on freedom of conscience and religious associations. It was basing upon the preamble text that fallacious concept of “traditional religions” was developed that was subject to well-reasoned criticism and caused numerous negative consequences. Even the gross error in the preamble text was not corrected as a result of which the Orthodoxy and Christianity are treated as separate religions.

Thus the bill looks feeble in general and requires radical revision.

About the report of USA Commission on International Religious Freedom

The USA Commission on International Religious Freedom published the next report estimating the state of religious freedoms in some countries of the world. Two groups of such countries are marked out as those “causing special anxiety” (North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia etc) where the breaking of religious freedoms is of especially intolerable character, and those “requiring special attention” where serious breaches of religious freedoms take place.

The commission that was informing for 10 years about the situation in the sphere of freedom of conscience in Russian Federation notes that it never included Russia into the group of “countries causing special anxiety” but this year decided to include it into the list of countries being “under additional control”. What is the motivation of the commission members for such a decision? Some “negative tendencies” are, and creation of a new body in the structure of the Ministry of justice in 2009 is especially marked out as it “has unprecedented authorities in control over religious groups”. Besides, according to the report authors, number of violations of religious freedoms towards non-traditional religions and Moslems grows. It’s interesting that in the same place the report authors note that “Russian government also uses the laws against incitement of hatred punishing for critical or humorous representation of religion in press or visual arts”. It remained unclear whether this is good or bad in the opinion of the report authors. What is bad here – that the government prohibits inciting the hatred or that it suppresses the freedom of journalists and artists?

The report tells about numerous breaches of human rights, authoritarianism of the state, control over NCOs, murders of journalists etc. This is all true and is an alarming tendency but has nothing to do with the specific situation with religious freedoms.

The report authors saw a serious threat in creation of Expert council under the Ministry of justice that has to review the materials and activity of religious organizations regarding the extremism. They note “extremely broad authorities” of the Council but it remains unclear what are these extremely broad authorities and why the Council is so dangerous. It’s unclear what is the horror of “checking the correspondence of activity of a religious group to its charter”, “detection of extremist character of activity of a religious group or its members”. Another matter is whether such a Council is necessary at all, what should be its purpose and what should be the personal composition of the Council. All these issues were poorly reasoned out during formation of the Council, and its formation was indeed subject to sharp criticism, especially in connection with the odious figure of its supposed chairman A. Dvorkin, and this is noted by the report authors quite fairly. And indeed, the council could turn into a body of reprisals towards disliked religious organizations under certain conditions – but nothing is heard about the activity of the Council yet and it may well be so that it would remain an inactive bureaucratic body. This is of course not the best variant but still the Council corresponds in no way to the horrors drawn by the report authors.

Further, the report tells quite fair things about preferences received by “traditional” religions and especially by Russian Orthodox church, about frequent cases of pressure, infringement of rights and persecution of other religious groups. Unfortunately the picture is not too joyous here. However it should be noted for justice’s sake that suppression of such groups as “Jehovah’s witnesses” and scientologists take place in several countries, and Russia is not alone here.

The report authors also mentioned some positive items including useful amendments to the law on NCOs covering also religious organizations: about simplification of their registration and report documents, abolition of requirement to inform about the amount of donations from Russian citizens and organizations.

Much attention is paid by the report authors, and quite fairly, to frequent illegal persecution of Moslems and defamation of Protestant groups in press.

In conclusion of the report, recommendations of the Commission to the USA government are presented for its policy of influence upon Russia in the field of religious freedoms. Some of these recommendations look very strange being no doubt an interference into internal affairs of Russia – like for example a proposal to demand a dismissal of the Expert council under the Ministry of justice. The Expert council could as successfully recommend the Russian government to demand from USA to dismiss the Commission that had prepared the report. Some wishes are not too appropriate in this report – like for example those concerning settlement and observance of general human rights in the North Caucasus. But many things proposed to the USA government for paying attention and making some steps really deserve keen attention of Russian authorities, experts, and scientists. Anyway the report, though being notable for some arrogant and condescending tone, seems useful for familiarization of interested Russians with it – the look from an outsider’s viewpoint is always of use.

Statement of Moscow bureau for human rights concerning publication of the report of International “Committee to Protect Journalists” about unsolved murders of mass media employees in Russia

Journalism is among the most dangerous professions all over the world. The task of people with journalist certificates is most responsible – to provide information for the people promptly and truthfully. They have to make reports from hot points, penetrate into prohibited zones, and investigate financial intrigues. So the profession of journalist is always associated with high risk.

No journalist is insured from a stray bullet or a deliberate shot of a brutalized militant in field conditions no matter how the international agreements regulate the status of journalist. But the safety of journalists investigating the cases of corruption, machinations in higher political and financial spheres – i.e. where the promulgated truth may have most serious consequences for society and state – is a sanctum in the civilized countries. Every case of hindrances, blackmail, threats to the journalists involved into such investigation that becomes known causes the strongest scandal and indignation in the society – to say nothing about the fact when the journalist is killed which is the most uncommon case for developed counties.

Unfortunately Russia can’t be proud of belonging to the civilized world in no way – at least concerning protection of journalists … Not long ago the International “Committee to protect journalists” published a report about unsolved murders of mass media employees in Russia: according to the data of this organization, 20 journalists were eliminated, killed in conflict zones or perished under mysterious conditions. According to the estimates of the committee experts, Russia occupies the third place in the world by the number of murders of mass media employees sharing it with Somali (Iraq and Philippines occupy first two places). And by the number of unsolved murders Russia occupies as non-honorable ninth place (the first places are occupied by Iraq, Sierra-Leone and Somali).

The report not just analyzes the specific cases of murders of the journalists but also highlights the vices of our law-enforcement and judicial systems – however they are well-known: investigations are conducted under closed regime, under pressure of external forces; important versions are not examined during the investigation, the evidences are concealed; the procedures are sometimes simply closed. These true rebukes may be supplemented with considerations of high extent of corruption of our law-enforcement and judicial system.

The attack on the editor-in-chief of Khakass edition “New focus” Mikhail Afanasyev who gave coverage of the tragedy at Sayano-Shushenskaya hydropower plant may serve as a fresh example of such lack of protection of journalists as well as escape of journalist-expert M. Voytenko who dealt with the questions of mysterious story with the vessel “Arctic Sea” from the country.

On September 9 two unknown persons attacked Mikhail Afanasyev not far from his house and started beating him. The journalist managed to escape from the assailants and hide himself in the hotel foyer from which the receptionist called for militia and ambulance.

Afanasyev himself associates the attack with his professional activity. And such supposition seems not unfounded. Mikhail Afanasyev wrote much about the breakdown at Sayano-Shushenskaya hydropower plant advancing the versions of reasons for the breakdown and progress of salvage operations that differed sharply from official ones. It should be reminded that not long before that M. Voytenko who investigated the story with “Arctic Sea” and whose versions also differed from official ones announced he had to leave the country due to the threats.

M. Afanasyev wrote about depreciated turbines at the plant, placed a report on his blog telling about living people who remained in “air bags” in the drowned sections of hydropower plant. Criminal proceedings were instituted against the journalist on suspicion of disseminating deliberately false information. But the chief of Siberian regional search-and-rescue group Alexander Kresan confirmed this information later, and Abakan UVD terminated the investigation of this case without stating the reasons.

There were attempts to accuse the journalist of the fact that his materials about breakdown at Sayano-Shushenskaya affected the health of the people negatively, that he “made zombies” of his readers adding “hidden insertions” into the text of the letter of relatives of the breakdown victims presented by him. And again, Roscomnadzor found the accusation against Afanasyev illegal.

The head of Ministry on extraordinary situations Sergey Shoygu called upon M. Afanasyev to apologizing in front of the rescuers for calumny though he stated that he demanded no criminal persecution of Afanasyev.

The fact that one of assailants asked the another on the moment of the attack “is that him?” and got the positive answer is rather an evidence that the attack was deliberate. It is also clear that the heads of the Ministry on extraordinary situations and hydropower plant were hardly pleased with the materials of the journalist.

Certainly this all is not a reason yet for accusing them or services under their control of revenge on M. Afanasyev: attack of hooligans is quite a common thing in our country. But in any case the law-enforcement bodies should do their best for revealing the criminals and calling them to account. Again not just the citizen of Russia is attacked but the journalist who criticizes the authorities.

In other words, journalists don’t feel themselves protected, and this leads to the growth of self-censorship. Both journalists themselves and their editions begin bewaring of interpreting any subjects that may create a threat for their professional activity and personal safety.

In the long run, a closed circle appears. These are only journalists who permit the citizens know what really happens in the country, they provide the only channel executing real connection between authority and society. Self-censorship closes the last ways to the freedom of press, publicity, control of society over the state, and permits the criminals at all the levels remain unpunished. Such a society is doomed to total confrontation of authority and people, to orgy of corruption and absence of democracy.

It would be most desirable that the report of “Committee to protect journalists” would be analyzed by the Russian authorities.