- Boris Stomakhin
Boris Vladimirovich Stomakhin ("Russian": Борис Владимирович Стомахин) (born
August 24 ,1974 ,Moscow ) is aRussia nJewish political activist ,journalist , and editor ofdissident periodicals. He advocated independence of unrecognizedChechen Republic of Ichkeria , argued that Chechen rebels werefreedom fighter s who had the right to conduct war with theRussian Federation , and compared PresidentVladimir Putin toSaddam Hussein andSlobodan Milošević . He was convicted to five years in prison on charges of inciting ethnic hatred and making public appeals for extremist activity. The conviction is disputed by human rights protection organizationsARTICLE 19 ,Committee to Protect Journalists , andUnion of Councils for Soviet Jews .Journalism and political activism
Since 2000, Boris Stomakhin was an editor of the monthly newspaper "Radical Politics". In addition, he contributed numerous materials to
Kavkaz Center , the radicalIslamic internet agency that promotes the independence ofChechnya and is maintained by Chechen separatists.Stomakhin claimed that Russian troops in Chechnya are "occupiers" and compared President
Vladimir Putin toSaddam Hussein andSlobodan Milošević . [http://www.humanrightshouse.org/dllvis5.asp?id=4975 Independent journalist given five-year sentence allegedly for inciting ethnic strife] ] According to his court sentence, Stomakhin also stated that modern Russia is anEvil empire and therefore must be destroyed, and consideredShamil Basaev andSalman Raduev as heroes of the Chechen resistance whoseterrorist activities arelegitimate . [http://www.zaborisa.narod.ru/061120prigovor.html Official Court Sentence on Russian language dated 20.11.2006] ] However, some human rights activists likeValeria Novodvorskaya andYakov Krotov did not believe that he actually promoted any terrorist activities. [http://www.svobodanews.ru/Transcript/2006/11/28/20061128140042880.html "Boris Stomakhin:Victim of the Regime or a Terrorist]Radio Liberty ru icon]Stomakhin was a leader of a radical political group "Revolutionary Contact Association" (RCA). Other members of this organization are Pavel Kantor, Dmitry Tarasov, Ludmila Evstifeeva, and Pavel Luzakov. They organized a number of pickets against Russian foreign policy in Ukraine, Estonia, Belarus, Chechnya.
Stomakhin was accused of
hate speech in December 2003. His home was raided in April 2004 and his computers and books were confiscated for the expertise. Stomakhin was interrogated. The Psychiatric expertise atMoscow Serbsky Institute found that Stomakhin is competent for the trial. Stomakhin escaped to theUkraine seeking political asylum status, which was eventually denied.Arrest and trial
Having returned to Moscow, Stomakhin was arrested on
March 21 2006 . Stomakhin tried to escape during his arrest and fell down from fourth floor of his building, according to his lawyer Alexei Golubev and news reports. [http://www.prima-news.ru/news/news/2006/3/29/35420.html Prima News Agency report] ] [http://www.newsru.com/russia/03oct2006/stomaxin.html NewsRu Agency report] ] [http://lenta.ru/articles/2006/11/20/court/ Lenta.Ru Agency report] ] [http://www.regnum.ru/news/739771.html Regnum News Agency report] ] [http://www.grani.ru/Society/Xenophobia/m.114646.html Grani News Agency report] ] [http://www.russianlife.nl/boris_stomakhin.htm Human Rights Activists Website of Valeria Novodvorskaya article] ] [http://arrests.cjes.ru/?id=282 Center of Extremal Journalism article] ] [http://rian.ru/defense_safety/investigations/20061005/54549461.html RIAN News Agency investigation] ] [http://rian.ru/society/20061124/55959089.html RIAN News Agency news article] ] His spine and bones were broken as a result.He was sentenced to five years of prison for inciting religious and ethnic hatred, promoting violent change of constitutional regime, calls for violation of territorial integrity of Russian Federation, defamatory statements(articles 280 and 282 of the Russian Criminal Code).
Below are some excerpts from Stomakhin's articles cited as incriminating evidence in the court sentence:
*"Let tens of new Chechen snipers take their positions in the mountain ridges and the city ruins and let hundreds, thousands of aggressors fall under righteous bullets! No mercy! Death to the Russian occupiers!" [http://www.zaborisa.narod.ru/061120prigovor.html Official Court Sentence on Russian language dated 20.11.2006] ] (the article was written in response to rape and murder of Chechen womenElza Kungaeva byYuri Budanov )
*"We, 'Revolutionary Contact Association' and 'Radical Politics' are united with theCommittee 2008 and are ready to cooperate with it. However we [are] a lot more radical. We are for not waiting until 2008 and bothering ourselves particularly with the Constitution, but we are for calling people to overthrow the Putin's regime as soon as possible. And we do not see any possibility of preserving Russian Federation as a single state. But we are ready to unite with all allies, even those that are more moderate". [http://www.zaborisa.narod.ru/061120prigovor.html Official Court Sentence on Russian language dated 20.11.2006] ]
*"Bombing in Moscow subway was justified, natural and legal... The Chechens have full moral right to blow up anything they want in Russia after all that Russia and Russians did to them, none objections on humanism and philanthropy could be accepted." [http://www.zaborisa.narod.ru/061120prigovor.html Official Court Sentence on Russian language dated 20.11.2006] ]
*"All Chechnya is currently filled up with the same Budanovs, maniacs, blood lusting sadists, murderers and degenerates with epaulets . The entire Russian occupation army consists of such Budanovs". [http://www.zaborisa.narod.ru/061120prigovor.html Official Court Sentence on Russian language dated 20.11.2006] ]
*"In Chechnya Russian army ceased to exist as a military structure of state, being transformed into a devilish gang of marauders and killers, the gang intoxicated from narcotics". [http://www.zaborisa.narod.ru/061120prigovor.html Official Court Sentence on Russian language dated 20.11.2006] ]
*"Precisely the bloody, cannibalistic ferocity of this state against a small and defenceless mountain nation was the first to inspire our mind with this thought: Russia must be destroyed forever, a state that allows itself to do such things to entire nations must not exist at all!"
*"TheChechen heroes are going.Dudayev , Atteriyev, Khattab, and today - Raduyev. It is as if they are being devoured, swallowed by a terrible, black malodorous abyss. The name of that abyss is Russia. Russia's immeasurable baseness and perfidy, her pathological dishonesty and criminality as a country, a civilization, a historical agent."Stomakhin pleaded not guilty. According to
RIA Novosti , news agency, cited by the Committee to Protect Journalists he said he was "tried for his views and not for any real crime. ... In the articles, I expressed my opinion, with which people were free to agree or disagree." He said an opinion was not a “call to action.” [http://www.cpj.org/attacks06/pages06/imprison_06.html#russia]Commentaries
ARTICLE 19 international organization, which protectsfree speech , stated that "we do not believe Mr. Stomakhin’s comments can be interpreted as incitement to ethnic hatred." [http://www.article19.org/pdfs/publications/russia-journalist-stomakhin-conviction.pdf ARTICLE 19’S STATEMENT ON THE CONVICTION OF RUSSIAN NEWSPAPER EDITOR BORIS STOMAKHIN] , 23 November 2006 ] He is currently one of two journalists jailed for their professional activities in Russia according toCommittee to Protect Journalists [http://www.cpj.org/attacks06/pages06/imprison_06.html#russia] (this organization is a member ofInternational Freedom of Expression Exchange ). He was qualified as aprisoner of conscience " [http://www.fsumonitor.com/stories/051107BM.shtml] by theUnion of Councils for Soviet Jews and as apolitical prisoner in an open letter send toG7 leaders by Russia's human rights activistsSergei Kovalev ,Yelena Bonner , andGleb Yakunin . [http://prima-news.ru/eng/news/news/2007/6/1/38331.html] [http://www.ihf-hr.org/viewbinary/viewhtml.php?doc_id=7595] [http://www.robertamsterdam.com/2007/05/open_letter_to_g7_from_russias.htm]Valeria Novodvorskaya , government opposition figure, leader of theDemocratic Union , claimed that the prosecution of Stomakhin was the start of a wider campaign, "because together with him, the entire human rights sector and the entire democratic movement will be put on trial for disagreeing with the majority, for not accepting the state policy of the Russian Federation, for sympathizing with the Chechen people, for anti-war demonstrations and pickets." [http://www.jamestown.org/publications_details.php?volume_id=416&issue_id=3942&article_id=2371691 KAVKAZ-CENTER WRITER APPEALS JAIL SENTENCE] - by Jamestown Foundation ]According to Micah H. Naftalin, Director of
Union of Councils for Soviet Jews , "Bogus charges aimed at stifling dissent, cruel police tactics, ethnic bias, and blatant disregard for criminal procedural statutes are all on open display. We hope that others will join us in condemning this travesty of justice" [http://www.fsumonitor.com/stories/110906PR.shtml UCSJ Calls For Fair Trial of Russian Jewish Activist] , statement of UCSJ November 9, 2006) ] . He noted "ethic bias" because Stomakhin was prosecuted as a "Jewish activist", according to him. Mr. Naftalin acknowledged that Stomakhin's statements were "radical", but emphasized that Stomakhin did not do anything violent, whereas many other realhate crime cases were not prosecuted by Russian authorities.A group of Russian citizens including
Vladimir Bukovsky condemned the conviction of Stomakhin as prosecution offree speech . They noted that many famous Russian writers were very critical of Russian nation and citedNikolai Chernyshevsky who said that Russians are "a pitiful nation of slaves. We are all slaves, from the top to the bottom [of society] ". [http://www.chechenpress.info/events/2006/05/05/01.shtml Open letter in support of Boris Stomakhin] ] [http://zaborisa.narod.ru/ds.html Open letter in support of Boris Stomakhin] ]Widow of
Andrei Sakharov Elena Bonner compared Stomakhin with Soviet dissidents who were prosecuted for their writings byYuri Andropov . [http://zaborisa.narod.ru/lena.html Letter by Sannikova and Bonner] . ] Human rights activist Svetlana Gannushkina and politician Valeria Novodvorskaya argued that Stomakhin's writings while "outrageous" had not been a public threat: they were very unlikely to incite anybody [http://www.grani.ru/Society/Law/m.114655.html Conviction of Boris Stomakhin: Opinions (Russian)] - by Anna Karpuk for grani.ru ] [http://grani.ru/Politics/Russia/FSB/m.114531.html Scapegoats] - byValeria Novodvorskaya for grani.ru ] [http://grani.ru/opinion/novodvorskaya/m.114765.html Second-hand fascism] - byValeria Novodvorskaya for grani.ru ] [http://www.grani.ru/Society/Law/m.114655.html Conviction of Boris Stomakhin: Opinions (Russian)] - by Anna Karpuk for grani.ru]Journalist Vladimir Abarinov criticized court proceedings as an example of
Kangaroo court [http://grani.ru/Society/Religion/m.115021.html Stomakhin Case] - by Vladimir Abarinov for grani.ru.] He noted that the criminal case against Stomakhin was opened based on an article aboutRussian Orthodox Church that was not written by Stomakhin. It was decided by the court that Stomakhin actually copied this article from the Live Journal entry, as well as other publications of numerous news agencies. [http://www.zaborisa.narod.ru/061120prigovor.html Official Court Sentence on Russian language dated 20.11.2006] ] The authors of the original article were not ever accused of hate crimes. The authors of the original work disagree to share their responsibility with Stomakhin citing that he had reproduced their works without permission and distorted the original meaning.Critics of the court decision were censured by Russian publicist Maxim Sokolov. In his article published in pro-governmental
Izvestia after the conviction of Stomakhin [http://www.izvestia.ru/sokolov/article3098675/ Maxim Sokolov "Trap-282"]Izvestia 23 November 2006 ] he argued that Stomakhin's writings are worse thanMein Kampf byAdolf Hitler and thathate speech must be prosecuted according to the article 282 of the Russian criminal code. He cited a text allegedly written by Boris Stomakhin, which claimed that "Russian Federation must be destroyed" by all available means including nuclear war, because all Russian citizens are collectively responsible for actions of their government with respect toChechen people . According to Sokolov, the cited passage made application of the article 282 completely appropriate, although this text was not cited as incriminating evidence in the court sentence.References
External links
*ru icon [http://www.zaborisa.narod.ru/061120prigovor.html Official Court Sentence] , dated
November 20 ,2006
* [http://www.zaborisa.narod.ru/ Web site in support of Boris Stomakhin]
* [http://rko.marsho.net/articl/articl.htm Articles by Boris Stomakhin]
* [http://209.85.129.104/search?q=cache:CwnDta7Okt4J:rko.marsho.net/articl/mashadov.htm+%D1%83%D0%B1%D0%B8%D0%B2%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%8C!+%D1%83%D0%B1%D0%B8%D0%B2%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%8C!+%D1%83%D0%B1%D0%B8%D0%B2%D0%B0%D1%82%D1%8C!&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=9 The article 'Death to Russia' by Boris Stomkahin in Google cache]
* [http://rko.cjb.net Revolutionary Contact Association website]
* [http://rko.marsho.net Revolutionary Contact Association website]
* [http://soprotivlenie.marsho.net/ Another website of Revolutionary Contact Association]
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