For four days, beginning on October 20 in St. Petersburg, the forces of state repression of the Russian Federation will try retired Naval Captain, Alexander Nikitin, the nuclear hazards whistle-blower, for treason and espionage - the first major political show trial since the fall of the Soviet Union. The trial will take place at The City Court of St. Petersburg, Russia located on Fontanka 16, 2nd Floor commencing Tuesday, October 20, 1998 at 10:30 a.m.

Observers from across the globe are expected to attend including: Congressman David Skaggs (D-2nd/Colorado); Stephen Mills, Sierra Club Human Rights and the Environment Campaign Director; Prof. John Gillespie, Human Rights Commission of the New York Academy of Sciences; Prof. Bill Bowring, Essex University Law School for Amnesty International (London); Diederik Lohman, Human Rights Watch (Helsinki); Viggo Lange, International Bar Association (Norway); V.M. Nesterov and A.N. Golov, Russian State Duma; Halgeir Langland, Norwegian Parliament; and representatives from the consulates of the UK, US, Norway, Canada and Austria; as well as Leonid Lvov, Director of UCSJ's and Bay Area Council's St. Petersburg Bureau and Frederic Hauge, Executive Director Bellona Foundation (Norway).

In essence, Nikitin wrote a report, published by the Bellona Foundation, based entirely on published sources, alerting the public to the environmental and health hazards to the North Sea from the storage of obsolete and leaking nuclear submarines. The report's message has been acknowledged by such high officials as the president of Russia and the King of Norway, who are discussing ways and means to clean up the pollution. Meanwhile, the messenger -not the culprit- is being charged with revealing state secrets. In prosecuting this case, the authorities are using what can only be called Soviet-era tactics.

Nikitin's arrest and long pre-trial detention, as well as the current restrictions on his freedom, violate internationally accepted human rights agreements, as well as the Russian Constitution's protection for environmental whistleblowers. The 45-page indictment against Nikitin is based almost in its entirety on secret or retroactively applied decrees -also unconstitutional-- by an embarrassed Russian Defense Ministry.

"The Soviet Jewry activists can recall a time when the movement focused primarily on such blatantly bogus cases of secrecy by the KGB as the basis for quarantining refuseniks," proclaims Yosef I. Abramowitz, president of the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews (UCSJ). Abramowitz adds, "that security officials can so brazenly flout fundamental human rights and pursue their campaign of intimidation against one of its citizens has not only given the international human rights community cause for concern over Russia's political future but particularly for the Jewish community who are confronting rising antisemitism and fascism." UCSJ national director, Micah Naftalin declares that, "this bogus case should be dropped before Russia is further embarrassed."

More on Nikitin

[HOME] [ACT] [CONNECT] [JOIN] [ABOUT] [SEARCH]