Protests follow jailing of Russian researcher

By Renfrey Clarke MOSCOW — International outrage is spreading following the February 6 arrest of Russian environmental activist Alexander Nikitin on charges of "betraying the motherland by espionage". A former naval captain, Nikitin was employed in St Petersburg by a Norwegian environmental group, the Bellona Foundation. His work included helping to prepare reports on radioactive contamination in the Russian arctic. Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB — the former KGB) alleges that Nikitin sold Bellona secret information on military nuclear facilities. If convicted, Nikitin can expect to be sentenced to a minimum of 10 years' imprisonment, and could face the death penalty. Bellona insists that Nikitin's activity amounted solely to verifying and collating material that was already publicly available. On February 9 Amnesty International in London issued an urgent action report listing Nikitin as a "possible prisoner of conscience/fear of death penalty" case. The European Parliament condemned the arrest in a February 14 resolution "to make clear to the Russian government that such actions against environmental research can only make the task of cleaning Russia of the immense burden of pollution ... more difficult". The Council of Europe has reportedly called on Russian authorities to provide a detailed explanation of the charges, and has instructed its mission in Moscow "to take up this persecution of a scientific researcher with vigour". Amnesty International has expressed particular concern at the fact that Nikitin has been denied the right, guaranteed under Russia's constitution, to freely choose his own defence lawyer. Nikitin has refused to accept a lawyer appointed by the FSB. He is being represented informally by a prominent St Petersburg attorney, Yuri Schmidt. Apart from a brief meeting soon after Nikitin's arrest, Schmidt as of February 17 had not been granted access to his client. Even if Nikitin wins the right to proper legal representation, the case is unlikely to go to court for at least another six months. Until then, the researcher can expect to stay in the "Big House" — the remand prison on Leteny Prospekt in St Petersburg — with his fate a warning to other environmentalists not to inquire into matters that the state authorities find embarrassing. Bellona's initial report on nuclear safety and the Russian Navy's Northern Fleet appeared in March 1994. By the autumn of 1995 a further report was ready; before publication, it was circulated for comment to interested parties, including the Russian government. The report drew a horrifying picture of neglect by the Northern Fleet in its handling of radioactive wastes from its nuclear-powered warships. At the fleet's main waste dump, only 45 kilometres from the Norwegian border, wastes had remained for decades in facilities intended for only a few years' use. A serious accident in 1982, when a major catastrophe was only narrowly averted, failed to spur any improvement. According to article 3 of the Law on State Secrets, "information on the condition of the environment" cannot be classified if the population is in danger. Nevertheless, the authorities launched an intensive campaign of harassment against Bellona and its Russian collaborators last year. Partly because the victims included foreigners, these early attacks received significant international publicity. But they were not the whole extent of state attacks on environmentalists, or even the worst cases. At a press conference several weeks ago, human rights activists described an increasingly aggressive campaign by state bodies against environmentalists. In one of the cases cited, Gulfarida Galimova, a doctor in a Siberian town heavily polluted by radioactive wastes, lost her job after trying to send blood samples from local people for genetic tests. Environmentalist Nikolai Shchur spent six months in jail after trying to measure radioactive contamination at a military facility. The attacks on environmentalists are only part of a growing crackdown against critics of the government. Officials have been quick to cite "state secrets" as a reason for withholding information or persecuting people who reveal it. On February 5 President Boris Yeltsin's human rights commission presented him with a bitterly critical report on the situation in Russia in 1994 and 1995. The report condemned "the restriction of free speech and access to current and archive information under the pretext of safeguarding state secrets". The head of Russia's Nuclear Ecology Centre, Lidiya Popova, observed recently that of the country's 32 government ministries, 26 have been given the power to declare any information a state secret. The mounting disregard for human rights has clear links to Yeltsin's abandonment of any particular pretence of defending "democratic" positions. Another aspect of this shift is an increasing tone of nationalism. This is reflected in a more and more obvious scorn by state functionaries for international opinion. The first attacks on Bellona last October came only two days after then foreign minister Andrei Kozyrev had signed a memorandum on Russian-Norwegian cooperation on nuclear safety. As well as being a stunning affront to the Norwegians, the FSB's action showed that even last autumn, the influence of the Foreign Ministry on Yeltsin and his closest associates — who include FSB chief Mikhail Barsukov — was almost negligible. Few western governments have made even token efforts to persuade Yeltsin to reverse the deterioration of human rights. Late in January, the Council of Europe voted overwhelmingly to admit Russia as a full member, despite protests from the highly regarded organisation Human Rights Watch/Helsinki. In order to admit Russia, the council ignored an established principle that member states should renounce use of the death penalty. Russia in 1995 executed almost 90 people, up from 20 in 1994 and four in 1993. The test is now on the Norwegian government to make an emphatic public protest against the jailing of Nikitin. In late February Norwegian foreign minister Bjoern Tore Godal was forced in parliament to promise that he would raise Nikitin's case with the Russian foreign minister during a visit to Moscow scheduled for March 2.