Russian environmentalist held for 'espionage'

By Renfrey Clarke MOSCOW — Emboldened by President Boris Yeltsin's open shift to authoritarian-nationalist positions, Russia's security services are resurrecting an ugly practice — arresting and prosecuting dissidents under vague catch-all legislation. Early on February 6, five or more agents of the Federal Security Service (FSB — the former KGB) detained environmental activist Alexander Nikitin in his apartment in St Petersburg. A former captain in the Russian navy, 43-year-old Nikitin until three years ago was a Defence Ministry nuclear facilities supervisor. He is now employed by a Norwegian environmental organisation, the Bellona Foundation, which has made extensive studies of nuclear hazards posed by the operations of the Russian Northern Fleet. According to Izvestia on February 8, Nikitin has been charged under Article 64(a) of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, "Betrayal of the Homeland in the Form of Espionage". This legislation, whose lack of specificity betrays its Soviet origins, defines the following actions as unlawful: "An action by a citizen of the Russian Federation which entails a threat against independence, the laws of the country or state secrets and the ability of the country to defend itself, siding with the enemy, intentions to overthrow the government." Persons found guilty may be sentenced to 10 to 15 years in prison, or even to death. The arrest is the most savage blow so far in a four-month campaign of harassment and intimidation by security services against Bellona and its collaborators. Early in October FSB officers raided the foundation's premises in St Petersburg and Murmansk, seizing computers and written materials. Several environmentalists were detained and interrogated. Faced with demands that it justify its actions, the FSB sent a spokesperson onto a television news program on October 17 to claim that Bellona was helping western intelligence services, and that western environmentalists in general were using environmentalism as a cover for espionage. Next day, the St Petersburg FSB issued a press release claiming that Bellona was in possession of materials containing state secrets. Bellona denied that it held or had divulged any secrets about the Northern Fleet. "All our material is collected from open sources", the environmentalists stated. "Only the collocation is our own. We have never investigated military, only environmental, issues." The Russian constitution states that information on emergencies and catastrophes that threaten the safety of citizens, as well as information on the environment, health and demography, may not be classified secret. The Norwegian government and the European Parliament both expressed concern at the harassment of Bellona. Nevertheless, attacks by the FSB on environmentalists continued. By November 21, Bellona learned, 20 people in the port city of Severodvinsk in Arkhangelsk province had been interrogated. Severodvinsk is the site of a major nuclear submarine construction facility. On November 29 Bellona held press conferences in Moscow, Murmansk, Brussels and Washington. Journalists were given a report containing details of a perilous situation at the Northern Fleet's main nuclear waste dump at Andreyev Bay, on the Kola Peninsula 45 kilometres from the Norwegian border. Since 1962, the report revealed, large amounts of spent nuclear fuel have been held in the open at Andreyev Bay in some 30 makeshift containers. In all, the waste dump is estimated to contain between 30 and 40 million curies of radioactivity, a thousand times more than the amount involved in the largest of the recent French nuclear weapons tests. The containers are now near the end of their technical life. Andreyev Bay has already been the site of one serious accident, in 1982. According to Bellona, waste from this accident is still held in a temporary facility not designed for nuclear storage. The naval authorities appear to have reacted in classic fashion for officials who have received bad news — by demanding that the messengers be silenced. The FSB has answered this summons with a zeal worthy of its past. And the government has turned a deaf ear, making no move either to deal with the threat of massive radioactive contamination or to end the menace to civil liberties. If Nikitin's case goes to court, his chances of being acquitted are slight. Even if the navy is banned by the constitution from concealing the conditions under which nuclear waste is stored, there will be no shortage of "secrets" found by the authorities in the materials seized in Nikitin's apartment. The fact that these matters are "secret" will allow many of the trial proceedings to be closed to the public. It seems that only a vigorous international protest campaign can save Nikitin from a long sentence. Bellona has already called for such a campaign to be launched. The environmentalists are asking for letters of protest to be sent to Russian embassies, and for petition signatures to be gathered.