AAAS Scientific Responsibility, Human Rights and Law Program

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AAAS Human Rights Action Network

FACTS OF THE CASE:

The case of Alexandr Nikitin, a Russian engineer working for the Norwegian ecological foundation Bellona, has been returned to the St. Petersburg city court where it will be retried. Nikitin is charged with high treason and divulging state secrets for co-authoring a Bellona report about radioactive contamination in Russia's Kola Peninsula. A trial date has not been announced.

In February 1999, a St. Petersburg court suspended the hearings to give prosecutors more time to build their case against Nikitin, who has been under investigation since October 1995. He faces the threat of long-term imprisonment, and his passport has been confiscated. He is not permitted to leave St. Petersburg. In February 1996, he was arrested and held for ten months.

The indictment of Alexandr Nikitin, which is based on secret retroactive acts and legislation, is in violation of Articles 15 and 54 of the Russian Constitution. In addition, it is contrary to human rights provisions enumerated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which the Russian Federation is a state party. They include:

Under the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

• Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression . . . (Article 19).

Under the United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights:

• Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers . . . (Article 19).

(Information for this update was provided by Agence France Presse and the Bellona Foundation's Web site: . Other sources of information include the Moscow Human Rights Research Center, The Toronto Star, The St. Petersburg Times, and the American Chemical Society.)

RECOMMENDED ACTION:

Please send telexes, telegrams, faxes, or airmail letters:

• calling on Russian authorities to drop the charges against Alexandr Nikitin immediately and unconditionally on the grounds that they stem solely from the legitimate scientific work that he was conducting for the Bellona Foundation.

APPEAL AND INQUIRY MESSAGES SHOULD BE SENT TO:

Boris Yeltsin
President
The Kremlin
Moscow
Russia
e-mail president@gov.ru
Fax: 011 (7095) 206 5173


Sergei Vladimirovich Stepashin
Prime Minister
Government Offices
Krasnopresnenskaya
2 Moscow
Russia

COPIES SENT TO:

The Honorable Madeleine Albright
Secretary of State
Department of State
2201 C Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20006
Fax: 202-647-7120

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