Human rights defenders win trial

At a meeting on 14 November, the Nizhny Novgorod Regional Court overruled the claim for liquidation of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society (RCFS) brought by the Main Registration Department of the Justice Ministry of the Russian Federation for the Nizhny Novgorod region, Regnum news agency was told by the RCFS.

The decision may be appealed within ten days.

The Main Department of the Federal Registration Service of the Justice Ministry for the Nizhny Novgorod region (MD FRS) brought the claim for liquidation of the RCFS in April.

The MD FRS was proceeding with an extraordinary examination of the RCFS when it requested documents concerning the organisation's financial operations. However, the documents had been seized by the Nizhny Novgorod District Tax Inspection of Nizhny Novgorod for an examination by that moment, so they could not be submitted to the department. The MD FRS applied to a court of law to liquidate the RCFS.

At the previous meeting, the RCFS representative solicited for the claim to be not allowed to proceed because the registration service could not be the right claimant in a liquidation process in compliance with the law of the Russian Federation "On public associations." The judge refused to sustain the solicitation. The respondent decided to appeal this decision in the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. In this connection, a break was declared in the legal process until the RCFS's appeal was examined by the judicial board for civil cases in the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. On 8 November, however, the court gave the RCFS notice that the trial would continue before the meeting of the Supreme Court board.

Besides, examination in essence of the criminal case against RCFS Executive Director Stanislav Dmitriyevskii will begin on 16 November. The prosecutor's office accuses Mr Dmitriyevskii of inciting interethnic hatred over publication of addresses by Chechen separatist emissary Ahmed Zakayev and ex-leader of Chechnya Aslan Maskhadov in the newspaper Pravo-zashchita ("Rights Defence") where he works as editor-in-chief.

• New action against rights defenders