Stanislav Dmitrievsky

On 22 March 2007, police officers arrived at the office of the Nizhny Novgorod Foundation to Support Tolerance in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia with the suspected intent of detaining two of its leaders, Stanislav Dmitrievsky and Oksana Chelysheva.

The two human rights defenders managed to obstruct the police officer’s plans by immediately contacting international human rights organizations and western diplomats in Moscow officers. The attack on the office is the latest in a series of police actions against the leaders of human rights organizations over recent days. Both Stanislav Dmitrievsky and Oksana Chelysheva have been subjected to heavy police surveillance, and uninvited visitors have presented themselves at their residences.

On January 23, the Federal Supreme Court of Russia denied an appeal of a lower court's order to close the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society (RCFS). The RCFS, based in Nizhny Novgorod, was one of the few remaining organizations in Russia that was reporting on human rights conditions in Chechnya and the North Caucasus.  

12 september 2005

Prominent Russian human rights organisations including Memorial and The Moscow Helsinki Group, have collectively expressed their concern in a joint statement, over the seizure of funds by Russian tax authorities from the human rights organisation the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society

Russian Tax authorities (FTE) have demanded approximately 1,000,000 Roubles (approximately $35,000) in back taxes and fines for the alleged failure of the RCFS to pay tax on international grants. The FTE began forcefully withdrawing funds from the organization’s bank accounts on 26 August 2005, although the case is being appealed in arbitration court and no final decision has yet been made. Without these funds, which were raised through grants from the European Commission and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the organization will be forced to close.

Article 251 of the tax code of the Russian Federation states that tax free grants must be dedicated to “education, arts culture and environmental defence fields”. The deputy chief of tax inspection is arguing that the RCFS is using the subsidy for “publishing and diffusing publications”.