Dmitrievskiy, director of RChFS, appeals against the Soviet district court ruling

Stanislav Dmitrievskiy, executive director of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society and chief editor of the "Pravozaschita" (human rights protection) newspaper, has filed today a cassation application to the Judicial Panel on Criminal cases of Nizhni Novgorod regional court against the ruling passed by the Soviet district court of Nizhni Novgorod, runs the RChFS message submitted to the "Caucasian Knot". Leila Khamzaeva, Dmitrievskiy's lawyer who resides in Moscow, has filed today a cassation application to the regional court, too. On Thursday, a cassation application was also filed by Yuri Sidorov, another lawyer of Dmitrievskiy. The applications contain the request to overrule the conviction and to stop the criminal proceedings.

In their applications, Dmitrievskiy and his lawyers draw the attention of the cassation instance to various aspects of groundlessness of the conviction. The lawyer Sidorov's application highlights the lack in the sentence of any information on the purpose, motives and intention of the defendant to stir strife. Meanwhile, the crime for which Dmitrievskiy was sentenced can only be committed with a direct intention, on the ground of national intolerance. At the same time, all witnesses (both for the defence and the prosecution) unanimously characterized Dmitrievskiy as a staunch internationalist who actively opposes any manifestation of racism and xenophobia. In his application, Dmitrievskiy mainly concentrates on the incompetence of Teslenko, expert in linguistics, who made a conclusion on the existence in the addresses published by Dmitrievskiy of race, nationalistic and social hatred. For instance, in conformance with the methodological guidelines of the General Prosecutor's Office, a linguist is not capable to independently identify indications of race, nationalistic or social hatred without the participation in the expert evaluation of a specialist in social psychology, history and anthropology. In the opinion of the human rights activist, Teslenko demonstrated her incompetence (her specialty is "study of speech and voice") in the court room by refusing to give a definition to the terms "race", "nationality" and "social group," claiming that she has no right to intrude into the area of social sciences. Additionally, Teslenko who asserted that the said forms of hatred are stirred between Russians and Chechens also confessed that she did not know to which race Russians and Chechens belong. Meanwhile, both nations belong to one and the same Caucasian race and no racial hatred is possible between them in principle. In his application, Dmitrievskiy also draws attention to the fact that all conclusions of the expert are based on assumptions. Defence lawyer Khamzaeva in her application concentrates attention to the fact that the court sentence violates article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (the right to freedom of expression) and runs counter to the longstanding practice of the European Court concerning this article.

Last week the prosecutor's office also submitted a cassation representation to the regional court, in which they request that Dmitrievskiy's sentence should be made tougher.

As was reported earlier, on February 3, 2006, on the basis of the ruling of the Soviet district court in Nizhni Novgorod chaired by judge Vitaly Bondarenko, Dmitrievskiy was found guilty in committing an offence under article 282, Part 2, item "b" of RF CC (acts aimed at stirring hatred and disparagement of a group of people on the ground of race, nationality or membership of a social group, committed using mass media by way of malversation) and imposed a punishment in the form of two years of suspended imprisonment with four years of probation. Dmitrievskiy was incriminated with publication of addresses by Ahmed Zakaev and Aslan Maskhadov to the Russian people and the European Parliament containing calls for peace, severe critics of the Russian leadership policy in the North Caucasus and personally of Vladimir Putin. Major Russian and international human rights organizations consider the accusation politically motivated and the court sentence illegal and aimed at liquidation of the guarantees for the freedom of speech in Russia.