UCSJ: Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union has worked in the former Soviet Union since 1970. We join the Moscow Helsinki Group, Memorial, the International Youth Human Rights Movement, the Sova Center, the Sakharov Center, and many other leading Russian civil society organizations in expressing our profound concern at the bogus charges of extremism facing a couple of brave human rights activists from Novorossiysk, Russia.
Vadim and Tamara Karastelyov have for over a decade served their community by working with local youths in a variety of educational initiatives. They earned the ire of local officials when they advocated on behalf of the beleaguered Meskhetian Turk population, who faced such intense persecution at the hands of the regional government that they were eventually given mass refugee status in the United States. Vadim and Tamara, however, remained behind to continue their efforts to promote inter-ethnic tolerance and youth education.
The Karastelyovs, who head the Committee for Human Rights, face charges of extremism after a court appointed expert agreed with the prosecutor's contention that a sign reading "Freedom isn’t granted, it’s taken” at an April 4 rally the organization held constituted an extremist slogan. The rally included local youths who were protesting an illegal curfew ordinance for young people in Novorossiysk. In other words, the Karastelyovs are in court because they organized a protest action with the pedagogical goal of teaching students how to stand up for their rights in a peaceful and constructive way. If the Oktyabrsky District Court rules in favor of the prosecutor's motion, the Committee for Human Rights will be disbanded.
The same court appointed expert made the patently ridiculous conclusion that the Committee for Human Rights was, "serving the interests of those who want to shatter the socio-political order of modern Russia" and as evidence, cited a conspiracy theory popular in far-right circles that posits a CIA plan to destroy Russia. In the climate of paranoia that suffuses the Russian elite nowadays, unfortunately, there is a very real danger that the court will find this laughable accusation to be credible.
As our monitoring has shown year after year, Russia does indeed face a serious problem of extremist violence. Over the weekend, for example, neo-Nazis in Khabarovsk firebombed a children's classroom inside a synagogue, along with the home of a police official in charge of investigating extremist groups. However, it is obvious that the extremism law should have no bearing on the peaceful and socially useful activities of the Karastelyovs, or that of other civil society and human rights activists.
This is unfortunately not the first time that Vadim and Tamara Karastelyov have faced official persecution. Earlier this decade, prosecutors brought extremism charges against the organization that they then headed, which had the decidedly non-threatening name "The School for Peace." The local government's action led to that organization being disbanded. We fear that if that is allowed to happen again, it will have negative consequences not just in Novorossiysk, but could also spread into a more widespread attack on the NGO sector in Russia.