The Battle for the Khimki Forest (May 2011)

An appeal from Yaroslav Nikitenko (Movement to Defend the Khimki Forest):

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khimkiforest.org

Russia’s Khimki Forest is not the peaceful place it used to be, back when it was a 200-year-old oak forest known for its ecological importance to the Moscow region.

Today, it is filled with the roar of bulldozers, and the screams of activists at night. For the last week, the Khimki Forest defenders, many of whom I have been corresponding with for 2 months, have been taking turns camping out to defend the forest from illegal cutting. Each night, they put their lives at risk and every day they have experienced escalating violence, including violent attacks by private security forces and unknown thugs. There have been injuries too—broken noses, head traumas—but it is not for naught. They have been somewhat successful in stopping the logging, at least temporarily. But that can change day by day.

It is a disturbing scene, as you can tell from news articles describing the violence published this week in outlets including AFP, Radio Free Europe, and The Moscow Times. I also encourage you to read Yaroslav Nikitenko’s account of just one night in the forest, published on the Save Khimki Forest blog. The dramatic account begins:

“Dear all, as I suspected, many bad events happened. When it got dark, they turned on the harvester. They moved fast into the dip of the clearing. We ran after them from the camp. The securities did not let us go, they caught us by clothes and pushed us. But we went further and further, though slower. Then the harvester started to fell down the trees. We rushed through the guards to it. On a narrow place the guards stopped us again. We called Russian media, the members of the President Council, the deputies, and of course the police….”

More than 20,000 people have signed the Save Khimki Movement’s petition in solidarity with these brave activists. If you have not heard about it already, you can read more about their background, their recent progress here, and then sign their petition.

They are targeting Vinci, the translational corporation that heads the construction concession that is working to destroy this forest to build a toll highway. Currently, in its demand for 100,000 Euros as a fee for construction delays, the company is directly contributing to the violence and attacks happening this week. As Mikhail Matveev, one of the movement’s leaders says, “Thus, Vinci directly motivates perpetrators of the project to use all measure of pressing activists.”

Please watch the video appeal filmed this week in the video section to learn more and sign and share the petition immediately.

Blog by Jess Leber on change.org

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themoscownews.com

Khimki campaigners go to Paris

by Lidia Okorokova, 05/05/2011

The battle over the Khimki highway took a new turn this week as environmental activists petitioned French company Vinci’s Paris headquarters and demanded that the FSB investigate who really owns the Russian contractor tearing down the forest.

Meanwhile, in Khimki Forest, a new summer protest season is now underway, as campaigners were attacked by private security guards, and one Greenpeace activist was beaten up. The demand for an investigation into possible corruption came as the Defend Khimki Forest campaign and international NGO Bankwatch published a report questioning who will profit from the $8 billion Moscow-St. Petersburg highway, which is one of Russia’s first public-private partnerships in infrastructure.

The leader of the environmental campaigners, Yevgenia Chirikova, took a petition to the Paris headquarters of Vinci, the French company overseeing construction, and passed on the Bankwatch report to the Federal Security Service with a request that it investigate the web of offshore companies that stand behind the main Russian contractor, North West Concession Company.

The FSB’s press service said it had “no such information” about a request from environmental activists. Vinci’s Paris press office did not answer e-mailed questions by press time.

French-Russian joint venture

The complex structures surrounding Vinci’s joint venture with Russian contractors are aimed at hiding the true beneficiaries of North-West Concession Company’s lucrative contract, Pippa Gallop, a researcher from Bankwatch, told The Moscow News.

According to the report, North West Concession Company is 100-per cent owned by Vinci Concessions Russie SA Rueil Malmaison.

Vinci Concessions Russie SA Rueil Malmaison, together with Russian company N-Trans, established NWCC after the road was commissioned by the Russian government in 2008.

NWCC has recently reshuffled its top managers, with previous CEO Viktor Saveliev making way for Frenchman Pierre-Yves Estrade.

“We are in the transition period now and we are changing our CEO,” NWCC spokesman Sergei Ilinsky told The Moscow News on Thursday.

Opaque ownership structure

According to Gallop, NWCC is linked to a series of opaque privately-held companies, several of which are registered in tax havens such as the Bahamas, the British Virgin Islands and Cyprus.

Activists claim that this means large sums of Russian taxpayers’ money, funnelled into the public-private partnership, are ending up in offshore accounts – with no reliable way of knowing who the ultimate beneficiaries are.

Environmentalists have been fighting against the project to build a highway through Khimki Forest since 2004, and see Bankwatch’s report as more ammunition in their ongoing struggle.

But the Russian government insists that the highway is desperately needed to improve road infrastructure between the country’s two biggest cities – and says the road should go ahead, regardless of whether it is destroying environmentally sensitive forests.

Petitioning Paris

Chirikova flew to Paris on May 2 to deliver Bankwatch’s report and a petition of 20,000 signatures against the road’s construction to a meeting of Vinci’s shareholders.

She told The Moscow News that Russian eco-activists were now spreading their campaign internationally with the help of their European counterparts.

“The French are using our country to get even richer – it’s clear that the law doesn’t work here, therefore Vinci has all the means to receive even more money from this project,” she said.

New protest camp

Chirikova said that, after half a year of trying to persuade authorities to change the route of the highway, she and other campaigners were now determined to fight on through a new protest camp at the construction site.

The camp was joined by local residents, representatives of Greenpeace, activists from the Left Front and Just Russia State Duma Deputy Gennady Gudkov.

Activists managed to stop further works at the site with the help of Gudkov, who joined the campaigners and asked contractors for their permit papers, RIA Novosti reported.

Since the camp was set up this week, two activists were beaten up, with one having his nose broken, Chirikova told The Moscow News.

State highway company Avtodor had a complaint about the activists, however, alleging that “some of the activists set expensive tree-harvesting equipment on fire, which damaged it greatly,” RIA Novosti reported.

Vinci: Get Out of Khimki Forest!

“Ultimate Fighting in Khimki Forest,” 19 April 2011, Khimki Forest, Moscow Region. Video by Oleg Kozyrev, special for Echo of Moscow Radio

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Russian Anti-Corruption Movement, Backed By 20,000 Worldwide, Demands Major EU Corporation Pull Out of Illegal Forest Clearing

Before its annual shareholders meeting, individuals in 161 countries call on Vinci, one of the EU’s largest corporations, to end its involvement in Moscow-St. Petersburg Highway project until human rights abuses and environmental destruction are addressed.

27 April 2011 — Russian activists leading one of their country’s biggest protest movements in years are accusing Vinci, a Paris-based global construction firm, of complicity with human rights abuses and corruption perpetuated by government officials.

More than 20,000 people from 161 countries have signed their petition, started on the online social action platform Change.org, to denounce Vinci’s involvement in the toll highway project through Khimki Forest. Supporters plan to present the petition at Vinci’s annual shareholders meeting in Paris on May 2. They are asking Vinci to end its involvement in the project, unless Russian officials will reconsider several available alternative routes that go through industrial areas and would spare the legally protected forest land.

Police arrested and temporarily imprisoned 11 members of the Save Khimki Forest Movement last week as they peacefully protested ongoing illegal clearing in Khimki. Four days later security officers beat and robbed a local journalist on the scene. The ancient forest in the outskirts of Moscow is the site of an unlikely four-year battle to stop construction of a €1 billion toll highway through this forest.

Vinci, the only foreign firm involved in the concession deal to build the highway, is party to a new agreement that could allow construction of the controversial Khimki segment to proceed within weeks or even days.

The Save Khimki Forest Movement’s campaign has, in just one month, become one of the most popular global petitions on Change.org and has garnered additional support from Avaaz, the largest activism community in the world, as well a number of civil society organizations throughout Europe. This week, protest actions are being held by supporters around the world, including in Moscow, Toronto, Buenos Aires, Bremen, Prague, Mexico City, Klin, and Khimki, before Vinci’s shareholders meeting.

So far, Vinci has washed its hands of responsibility for the litany of documented abuses surrounding the project. In just one example, two journalists who exposed the corrupt officials involved were beaten badly in 2008 and 2010; one, Mikhail Beketov, is today in a wheelchair and unable to speak.

“We are asking Vinci to demand President Medvedev spare the forest and seriously address the abuses that have occurred. There are many alternative routes available. By doing nothing, Vinci will destroy a more than 200-year-old forest against the will of the Russian people,”said Khimki resident Yevgenia Chirikova, the leading figure of the movement. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden personally awarded her a “Woman of Courage” award in his visit to Russia this year.

“Sixty six percent of Russian citizens are against the project. But no one hears them. Vinci is also supporting outrageous corruption among our government officials that led to this selected route,” said Yaroslav Nikitenko, one of the leading activists.

Their work to save Khimki Forest gained national momentum as it became symbolic of larger issues of corruption, human rights abuses and environmental degradation in Russia. Last summer, about 5,000 protesters demonstrated in Moscow, spurring President Medvedev to halt the project until he approved it again in December.

French MEP Michèle Rivasi, a member of Green-EFA Group, also called on Vinci to take action this week. “The battle for Khimki forest in Russia is a symbol for the green movement. Russian activists are not only fighting to protect their forest and their environment, they are also fighting against corruption, censorship, violation of laws and human rights, oppression against civil society… Since the beginning, this project has been done without any real public participation, what is going against essential and basic rules of democracy. The Green-EFA group in the European Parliament has supported them since the beginning, and it’s particularly shocking to see a French company – Vinci – participating to this harmful project. I ask Russian authorities to stop violence against activists and Vinci to withdraw from this project,” she said.

Vinci is holding its annual shareholders meeting in Paris on May 2, and this effort is timed as a last-ditch appeal to the corporation to take a stand before the old-growth Khimki Forest—an area ecologists say is crucial to the environmental health of Moscow—is lost forever.

Contacts:

Save Khimki Forest Movement (MOSCOW): Yaroslav Nikitenko
+7-916-743-3759, metst13@gmail.com, (Russian, English)

Save Khimki Forest Movement (MOSCOW): Yevgenia Chirikova
+7-925-500-8236, ecmoru@gmail.com, (Russian, English)

Change.org (WASHINGTON, D.C.): Jess Leber, Environmental Editor
+1-516-658-9606, jess@change.org (English)

Contact for French MEP Michèle Rivasi, Group of the Greens/European
Free Alliance (BRUSSELS):
Michele.rivasi@europarl.europa.eu
+32-2-2845397

Contact for Vinci (PARIS):
Tel.: +33-1 47 16 45 39, +33-1 47 16 35 00

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“The Police and Its Laws in Khimki Forest,” 23 April 2011, Tolstoy Park, Khimki (Moscow Region). Video by Oleg Kozyrev, special for Echo of Moscow Radio

Save Khimki Forest: Stand with Russia’s Human Rights and Environmental Activists

www.change.org

Take action to save Russia’s Khimki Forest today.

Russian activists and journalists have survived beatings, arrests and intimidation during our campaign to save one of Moscow’s last old-growth forests from destruction. Our movement to reroute the toll highway that would cut through Khimki Forest has become Russia’s most inspiring and largest activist movements in a long time.

It is about more than just a forest.

We are fighting a legacy of corruption and bribery among government officials, law enforcement and industry that has allowed this project to move forward. Last year, after thousands of citizens protested in Moscow’s center, we won a huge victory when President Dmitry Medvedev temporarily halted construction. One of our lead organizers, Yevgenia Chirikova, is a mother of two who lives in Khimki and who has bravely spearheaded this campaign since 2007 at direct risk to her family’s safety.

Now construction is set to begin again.

As soon as this month, the French multinational construction company Vinci is authorized to begin the first phase of the highway.

This is the best chance for us to stop the project before construction crews arrive. We are turning to you to increase our international support.

Since the Russian government has failed us, we are targeting Vinci, which could make a huge profit from this project. It is the only Western company involved in the construction.

We are asking Vinci to end its involvement in the Moscow to St. Petersburg highway until an alternative route can be found that spares Khimki Forest.

We are also organizing an international week of action from April 24th to April 30th. We hope cities around the world will participate in demonstrations in solidarity. One action you can take to stand up for the environment and human rights in Russia is to support this petition.

Please sign now. You may also leave a personal message when you sign. And for more information on how to get involved email ecmoru@gmail.com or follow this Facebook page. Please tell us if you represent an environment or human rights group and want to sign a coalition letter of support.

Thank you, Save Khimki Forest Movement and Campaign for the Release of the Khimki Hostages

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Petition Letter

Save Khimki Forest

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing to express my extreme disappointment with Vinci for its involvement in destroying Russia’s Khimki Forest.

We are asking Vinci to live up to its UN Global Compact commitments. By joining the Compact, Vinci has committed to “support and respect internationally proclaimed human rights” and to make sure it is not “complicit in human rights abuses.” One glance at the list of human rights abuses against Khimki Forest activists, and it is clear that Vinci is violating its compact with its involvement in the project.

Ecological nihilism and human rights abuses, including beatings, attacks on the forest defenders by people wearing Nazi symbolics, who were officially hired by the construction company, and unlawful arrests and intimidation, have occurred against activists who are protesting the plans.

As the only Western company involved in the highway building, I ask that you pull out of the project or refuse to begin construction until the Russian government chooses an alternative route and addresses the human rights abuses that have occurred.

Sincerely,

[Your name]

Please go to www.change.org to sign the petition now!

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www.washingtonpost.com

Posted at 04:23 PM ET, 03/24/2011

One woman’s fight to preserve a Russian forest

By William J. Dobson

Last summer I wrote an op-ed describing the unlikely battle between Yevgenia Chirikova and the Kremlin. Yevgenia is a young mother of two with no background in political activism, but over the past three years she has become one of Russia’s most outspoken — and effective — environmental activists. This morning I received an e-mail from a member of her team telling me that Yevgenia’s fight is now taking another nasty turn.

The fight is over the future of Khimki Forest, a dense oak forest that is supposed to be an environmentally protected green space under Russian federal law. Nearly 10 years ago, Yevgenia and her husband moved to Khimki — a small suburban community outside of Moscow — to raise a family. While on maternity leave with her second daughter, Yevgenia unexpectedly found signs posted in the forest indicating that the oaks were to be clear cut. She later learned that the minister of transportation, Igor Levitin, along with local officials, intended to bulldoze the forest — in contravention of Russian law — in order to build a motorway that would connect Moscow and St. Petersburg, with a loop to Sheremetyevo Airport. These officials stand to benefit handsomely from the road’s construction. (According to a Russian anti-corruption group, new roads in Russia cost roughly $237 million a kilometer; in the United States, it is about $6 million for the same distance.) When Yevgenia raised objections to the project, Russian officials told her to mind her own business.

She didn’t. Instead, she began to talk to people in her community, organize rallies and stage protests. The authorities did not welcome her involvement. Members of her group, In Defense of Khimki, were threatened, harassed and intimidated. Mikhail Beketov, a local journalist and member of the movement, was brutally attacked outside his home. Left for dead, Beketov suffered permanent brain damage and is now confined to a wheelchair. But, at this moment, because of Yevgenia’s efforts and those who have joined the fight, Khimki Forest remains.

But the regime is now employing new tactics. If it can’t scare Yevgenia into submission, then it will put pressure on the people she loves. This morning I received e-mails from Yaroslav Nikitenko and Ivan Smirnov, members of In Defense of Khimki. They described how the new pressure point for the regime has become Yevgenia’s family — specifically her husband and two daughters.

Recently, representatives of the municipal department of guardianship “dropped by” to check on Yevgenia’s apartment. The officials alleged that they had received a letter from one of her neighbors claiming that she “beats” and “starves” her daughters, Liza and Sasha. The charges are absurd. Afraid that they would attempt to take her children from her, Yevgenia refused to open her door. Later, the department admitted that none of her neighbors had written such a letter, brushing off the whole encounter as simply their “duty” to check on the children.

On March 16, one day after Yevgenia led a protest calling for the minister of transportation’s removal, officials paid a visit to her husband’s company, en electrical engineering firm called EZOP. Her husband, Mikhail Matveev, founded the company years ago. Even though the police brought no charges with them, they raided his office, interrogated him and several of his employees, and seized company documents and paperwork. Mikhail had already learned that the authorities were calling his clients, alleging that there was a criminal case against him (when there is in fact none). Nor was the raid a complete surprise. A few days earlier, someone had left a comment on the In Defense of Khimki Web site, writing, “We’ll raid your company EZOP in the nearest future, prepare your papers!” It is clear to Yevgenia and her husband that this harassment is payback for her unwillingness to stop fighting.

The battle to save Khimki Forest may be about to enter another chapter. The government and business interests behind the construction project claim that they will begin cutting down the oaks in late April. In the meantime, Yevgenia and her supporters intend to hold protests and rallies to raise awareness that the construction crews are coming. They also intend to put public pressure on the French construction company Vinci, the only Western business group that supports this highway project.

Last April, when I first met Yevgenia, she took me on a walk in these woods that she is fighting to protect. It was clear to me that she now sees her activism as something much bigger than simply defending Khimki Forest; she sees it as a struggle against an authoritarian system that runs roughshod over its citizens. While we were walking through the forest, I asked if she was ever afraid that the authorities would try to harm her. After what had happened to Mikhail Beketov, it was an obvious question. She told me that if she thought about it too much she would go crazy. “My tactic is complete openness,” she told me. “Whatever I undertake, I try to somehow to reflect it or publish it in all kinds of media.” Yevgenia believes that the more people know about her and her fight, the harder it will be for the authorities to strike out in violence. It isn’t a guarantee, but she knows that it is easier for the regime to harm those who remain in the shadows.

If you are curious to know more about In Defense of Khimki Forest, you can find them on Facebook (www.facebook.com/khimki.forest). Also, look for the petition they plan to issue on Change.org next week.

Near the end of our walk, she said, “If something bad happens to me, then my activity was not useless. Other people will continue, and it will be impossible to make people shut up.” Hopefully, people will raise their voices sooner, not later.

January 19 Committee: Call for Antifascist Demonstration, January 19, Moscow

http://19jan.ru/

Call for Antifascist Demonstration, January 19, 2011, Moscow

January 19, 2011 will mark the second anniversary of the murders of two antifascists, lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova. They were murdered in Moscow in broad daylight, shot in the head by a gunman.

The murders were brazen and demonstrative. Although from the outset various explanations were given for the murders (as a lawyer, Markelov had handled cases in Chechnya, both against the federal forces who tortured and murdered Chechen civilians, and the Chechen leadership, who are suspected of kidnapping and murdering people; he had also represented journalist Mikhail Beketov, who was nearly beaten to death in autumn 2008, in his court battle with Khimki mayor Vladimir Strelchenko), Stas and Nastya’s comrades in the antifascist movement assumed that neo-Nazis had been involved. For it had been Stanislav Markelov who had pressured law enforcement authorities to conduct a thorough investigation of the murder, in the spring of 2006, of the young antifascist Alexander Riukhin. It was thanks to Markelov’s efforts that the authorities were unable to sweep this case under the rug or drop it altogether. It was thanks to his persistence that police investigators not only came up with a list of suspects, but also brought the case to court. Half of the people involved in Alexander’s murder were arrested and convicted for the crime, while the rest were placed on the federal wanted list.

Today, we have almost no doubts that law enforcement authorities have Stas and Nastya’s real murderer in custody, along with his female accomplice. Their court trial should begin soon. These two people are neo-Nazis, and one of them is in fact one of the people who was involved in the fatal attack on Alexander Riukhin but was not found by the authorities after being placed on the wanted list.

The murderers have been apprehended, their trial will soon begin. Does that mean society can breathe a sigh of relief?

No, it does not.

Dozens of less publicized racist murders take place in our country every year. The victims of these murders are Russian citizens of non-Slavic appearance as well as immigrants from former Soviet republics and former Soviet allies. S0viet-era international solidarity (whether fictitious or real) has been replaced by ethnic intolerance, by hatred towards people who are different, who speak a different language, whose eyes are differently shaped, whose hair and skin are a different color.

As a rule, we don’t remember the names of these victims of neo-Nazi terror. Often we don’t even learn their names: the press merely informs us that someone has murdered a citizen of Uzbekistan, a citizen of Kyrgyzstan, an Azerbaijani, an Armenian, an immigrant from Vietnam, a refugee from Afghanistan. We do not see their faces or the faces of their grieving relatives. It as if they pass anonymous into nonexistence, inhabiting our consciousness for the several seconds it takes us to read this terrifying news on our computer screens or in the pages of a newspaper.

But in fact none of the people who have died at the hands of neo-Nazis murderers is nameless. None of these people was born in a test tube, bereft of pain, reason, love, attachments, and hope. All of these people were brought into this world by mothers. Each of them had families and friends, people whom they cared about and who cared about them.

This problem, which was long ignored both by Russian society and the Russian authorities, was raised only by the local ethnic communities of the murder victims and by young antifascists, the same people whom lawyer Stanislav Markelov had befriended and defended, the same people in whose ranks journalist Anastasia Baburova (who herself had immigrated from Simferopol, in the Crimea, to Moscow) had stood.

A year ago, on the eve of the first anniversary of Stas and Nastya’s murders, people who had known them united together in the January 19 Committee to commemorate their lives and deaths in a worthy manner, and say a decisive “no!” to neo-Nazi terror. The members of the committee belong to different parts of the Russian social movement, and they have different views of our country’s present and future. And yet on January 19, 2010, they joined around 1,500 other people in an antifascist demonstration in downtown Moscow, braving minus twenty degree weather and active interference on the part of the Moscow police. The demonstrators included both people who frequently protest against the authorities and people who might not have taken part in public protests since the perestroika era. These people were joined by folks who had never participated in a demonstration before: society had begun to recognize the problem of neo-Nazi terror, and caring people were moved to act whatever their age, social status, profession, sex, and so on. The march was joined by students and pensioners, confident middle-aged professionals and poor people who had lost hope of making it, members of the intelligentsia and young workers, all kinds of different people. What united them was a troubled conscience, an intolerance of neo-Nazi murders, and shame for their country and city, a city in which such medieval monstrosities have nearly become a norm of daily life.

As we see now, a year later, this protest was more than timely. It is possible that it happened too late. In any case, the events of December 11–15 in Moscow and other Russian cities have proven that neo-Nazism has not been cowed. Extreme right-wing ideas have struck a chord with large numbers of young people, and these masses of young people, who were badly educated and poorly brought up during the years of the Yeltsin-Putin stagnation, are willing to engage in violence. The half-forgotten, moth-balled Russian word pogrom was heard again: the crowd on Manezh Square was on the point of starting a genuine pogrom, and the crowd that gathered outside Kiev Station four days later was prepared to engage in fighting, stabbing, beating, and shooting.

During those same days, people also asked where the antifascists had been. Why hadn’t they tried to confront the raging neo-Nazis? There are several possible answers to this question. First, why don’t you try to stand in the way of a crowd like that yourself? Second, try organizing resistance to an aggressive crowd of neo-Nazis, people who think nothing about murdering and beating other people, when you have become the target of a harassment campaign (if not a witch hunt) on the part of the authorities. These were the conditions faced by Russia’s youth antifascist movement during the second half of 2010. Police searches, police dragnets at concerts, arrests, and violent interrogations by police who wanted to force testimony from them: this was what being antifa meant in 2010, not educational work amongst young people, cultural events, publishing literature, and even the martial arts and football tournaments that young antifascists had still been able to organize in 2009.

Sensing that the young antifascists were a rising force, the state has thrown the entire weight of its police apparatus against them. Meanwhile, neo-Nazis have been holding their legally sanctioned Russian Marches, convening round tables and posing for journalists in expensive hotels, and continuing to murder the defenseless – janitors, petty laborers, teenagers. While the state was unleashing its dragnet against the antifa, the neo-Nazis were trying to go respectable, to show the authorities and the business world that they could be a source of “order” during a complicated economic and political situation, that they were capable both of doing the dirty work and putting on a fashion show in well-ironed shirts and ties.

This fashion show crystallized on Manezh Square in early December. Judging by the absence of real measures to find and punish the people who organized that riot, certain high-ranking Kremlin officials found it to their liking.

Given this situation, the January 19 Committee declares the need for all people opposed to Russia’s slide into the abyss of nationalism to unite and organize solidarity actions. We live in a huge country, and we are all different. Our country is divided by contradictions, arguments, and discrepancies, and at the end of the day we aren’t obliged to like each other. But we are united on one point: Nazism, which in the twentieth century brought incalculable suffering to our country and other countries of Europe, Asia, and the Americas, is once again blazing a bloody trail. It is too late to say that it must not rise again. It is already rising again, and now we have to talk about how to stop it.

We call on all honest people, people who value the ideals of freedom and justice and just plain normal life in our country, people of different nationalities, religious confessions, convictions, and guiding principles, to join us in an antifascist demonstration in Moscow and other Russian cities.

This will not simply be a memorial action to remember the dead – Stas Markelov, Nastya Baburova, and many, many others. January 19, 2011 must become a day of determination, a day of protest, a day of struggle against the fascist threat in Russia.

Demonstrators in Moscow will gather at 7:00 p.m. on January 19, 2011, at the Timiryazev Monument (near the Nikitsky Gates at the beginning of Tverskaya Boulevard). We will have more information about the route of the demonstration and slogans in the coming days. Check for updates at the January 19 Committee web site:  http://19jan.ru.

Stop neo-Nazi terror! Save Russia from the ultra right-wing threat!

As long as we’re united we can never be defeated!

—The  January 19 Committee

Flowers for Mikhail Beketov

Editor’s Note. Below, you will find a call made by a friend of our platform, artist Nika Dubrovsky, to participate in a very worthy initiative in support of Mikhail Beketov, the independent Khimki journalist who was left severely crippled after he was attacked by unknown assailants two years ago. Nika’s initiative has been under way for a while and formally wraps up on Saturday, but everyone should feel free to write to her (at her blogs, listed below) to express their support or, better yet, donate money the Beketov assistance fund to pay for a rose or for his continuing medical treatment.

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http://nika.x-31.com/blog/2010/11/19/tsvety-dlya-mikhaila-beketova

http://nikadubrovsky.livejournal.com/783642.html

Friends!

At 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, November 27, we are going to give roses to Mikhail Beketov.  The flowers will be given to him by Rada (Rada & Ternovnik) and several LiveJournal users (if anyone wants to join them, write! For the time being we have only two people who are in Moscow).

After long deliberations and conversations, it has been decided that the money should be sent directly to the account of the Fund to Assist the Journalist Mikhail Beketov. For the time being, the fund only has a bank account (in rubles and euros) and a Yandex Money account ( 41001783925783 mbeketov-fond).

Over the course of the next two days, the fund’s volunteers will add a Web Money account and will also add a special page where the names (or usernames) of all users who participate in the flower action will be entered daily.

Therefore, when you send money, don’t forget to immediately send a letter to the fund’s e-mail address: spravdoy.pressa@gmail.com. The volunteer handling this is named Vika. She has informed us that she will reply to all letters; if you do not receive a reply, send your letter again.

While the fund still does not have a PayPal account, I will provide my own: paypal.de@x-31.com. I will account for the payments made and publish the nicknames (or surnames) of the people who support Beketov. You should also send me an e-mail (nika@x-31.com) with your surname or username.

All the money collected will be taken to a flower shop that has agreed to roses from suburban Moscow at the cost of one euro per rose.

Each flower will bear a little name tag (“To Mikhail Beketov from…”). For us, the principle one rose-one person is important.

Our action is first and foremost an expression of our disagreement with the court that ruled that the crippled Beketov was guilty of slander. The flowers are signatures on a petition to the authorities, as well as a sign of respect and support for Beketov.

After my first post, some people offered their help in organizing the action, while other, indignant users demanded that the money be gathered not for flowers, but for food or a wheelchair.

It is my opinion that the Beketov fund definitely needs money. Beketov will soon be visited by a German doctor, who will arrange to continue Beketov’s medical treatments in Germany.

Everyone who feels that one euro for a flower is a blow to their budget can transfer one euro to the fund’s account with the note “not for flowers.” But, since we are on the topic, you could also send one euro for a flower, along with another ten euros for food and to pay for medical treatments.

However, we should remember that Beketov was not crippled by random hooligans. While we worry about how to spend our hard-earned euro, the people who commissioned this crime not only are still at large, but they also continue to engage in robbery. Even a superficial search in the Internet turns up evidence about the millions of euros received through kickbacks, bribes, and threats to foreign and Russian companies.

It’s a good thing that the Union of Journalists has awarded Mikhail Beketov a medal for bravery, but why can’t the authorities give him a worthy pension for the rest of his life and pay all his current and future medical bills?

A thousand roses at one euro each might give voice to this demand. That same thousand euros, if spent on his medical treatments, will disappear almost instantly.

Please donate one euro and (or) link to this post and (or) write your own post.

[…]

If you do not have money or a way of sending money, but you are also in solidarity with Mikhail Beketov, leave your username or name in the comments. I am certain that people will come forward who will send in 2, 3, 5 or 10 euros and will be glad to inscribe you at their own expense. That is the point of “one euro, one flower”: so that we can pay for each other.

This is how we will win.

Bring the Noise! (November 14, Moscow, Chistye Prudy)

Two years ago a wave of terror against social activists and journalists rolled over Russia. Newspaper editor and activist Mikhail Beketov was severely beaten in Khimki. In Moscow, persons unknown attacked sociologist and activist Carine Clément. In Vsevolozhsk (Leningrad Region), independent trade union leader Alexei Etmanov was also attacked by unknown assailants on multiple occasions. In Yakutia, trade union activist Valentin Urusov was framed by local police on a drugs charge, tried, and sentenced to several years in prison. In response to this terror, social activists held a demonstration at Chistye Prudy in Moscow that was attended by a few hundred people.

Two years have passed. Police have still not identified and arrested the people who assaulted Beketov, Clément, and Etmanov. Valentin Urusov is still serving time in prison for a crime he did not commit.

Today we are witnessing a repeat of the events of two years ago. Environmentalist Konstantin Fetisov has been severely beaten in Khimki. Unknown assailants have attacked and severely beaten journalist Oleg Kashin. The authorities are trying to frame antifascist activists for crimes they did not commit. In Zhukovsky, thugs beat up journalist Anatoly Adamchuk.

We believe that these new tragedies are the result of apathy in our society, which two years ago was unable to force authorities to find and punish the guilty parties in those dark events. The time has come to put an end to this, for if this time the criminals are not found, the atmosphere of impunity will untie the hands of all other scumbags once and for all. Instead of being shocking exceptions, these acts of terror will become a matter of everyday practice.

At 2:00 p.m. on November 14 we ask you to come join us at Chistye Prudy in Moscow. We realize that there is no point in long speeches. It is unlikely that anyone can learn something new, something that has not been published in the Internet. And so we suggest that you bring with you anything that can make a lot of noise as a symbol of your rage and indignation.

Silence and calm is exactly the reaction aimed for by those who jail, cripple, and murder people who disagree with the existing order.

http://khimkibattle.org/

http://www.ecmo.ru/

Global Action Days 2.0 in Solidarity with Gaskarov and Solopov

November 12–15, 2010: New International Days of Action
We Demand that the Russian Authorities Close the Khimki Case and Drop All Charges against Alexei Gaskarov and Maxim Solopov

In late October 2010, Russian social activists Alexei Gaskarov and Maxim Solopov were released from police custody on their own recognizance by the Khimki Municipal Court. They had been arrested a day after a protest in defense of the Khimki Forest on July 28, 2010. Now they are free pending trial, but the criminal case against them has not been closed. They have been formally charged with disorderly conduct, and if convicted, they could be sentenced to up to seven years in prison. The dates of their trials have not been set, but meanwhile prosecutors are demanding that Alexei and Maxim be returned to police custody. Aside from Alexei and Maxim, there are two other people who have been charged in the case, and prosecutors might bring charges against even more people in the very new future. Since Alexei and Maxim were arrested in late July, police investigators have been stubbornly fabricating arrest protocols, evidence, and eyewitness testimony and using force to extract statements from the hundreds of people they have hunted down and detained. What will happen to all these thick case files filled with fabrications? They will form the basis of the prosecution’s case in court. And so the fact that Alexei and Maxim have now been released from jail is not the end of the battle but a signal that we must continue to act decisively on their behalf. We will not allow the authorities to cover up the illegal destruction of the forest and the persecution of its defenders with the soiled robes of counterfeit justice. We will force the authorities to close the Khimki Case and drop charges against all activists!

Alexei Gaskarov

Why do the Russian authorities insist on turning activists into criminals and demanding prison sentences for them? For the same reason that they have either not launched or halted investigations into the near-fatal beating of journalist Mikhail Beketov, the murder of newspaper worker Sergei Protazanov, and the numerous attacks on Khimki residents. The policemen who beat up environmentalists defending the forest and arrested people participating in legal pickets have not been punished. The police investigators who tortured witnesses in the Khimki Case have not been punished. Can we expect fair trials for Alexei and Maxim when we have witnessed lawlessness and injustice so many times? Khimki judges have on numerous occasions shown all of us that we cannot count on their respect for the law and common sense. We demand that the case be closed!

Maxim Solopov

The protest action that took place in Khimki on July 28, 2010, was a response to the lawlessness and violence perpetrated against local residents, journalists, and activists. It was a highly emotional response to the fact that all previous protests had not just been ignored by the authorities but had been cruelly suppressed. As a result of this protest, the Russian authorities began heeding the voice of the forest’s defenders. The campaign to defend the forest caught this gust of hot July wind and continued to act using other means. The authorities must end their persecution of the people who took part in this protest and the forest defenders. All charges against Alexei Gaskarov, Maxim Solopov, and other activists must be dropped.

What You Can Do

1. During the international days of action on November 12–15, 2010, hold eye-catching protest actions in your cities at official political and cultural events organized by the Russian authorities as well as outside Russian Federation embassies and consulates. Demand to meet with official Russian representatives and give them your petitions. Any Russian company, product or event can be a successful occasion for your protests.

2. Send faxes to the Khimki Municipal Court (+7-495-572-8314), the Moscow Region Prosecutor’s Office (+7-495-621-5006) and the President of the Russian Federation (+7-495-606-2464), demanding that the case be closed and all charges against Alexei Gaskarov, Maxim Solopov, and other activists dropped.

3. Continue to send letters to such international organizations as the Council of Europe, the European Parliament, and the UN, asking them to investigate the abuses by Russian authorities and intervene in the case. You can find contact information for these organizations here: http://khimkibattle.org/?p=650.

4. Work to get articles published in your local and national media that will inform the broader public about the case of the Khimki hostages and the new threats to civil liberties and the rule of law in Russia. Invite neighbors, friends, and colleagues to your solidarity actions in support of Alexei and Maxim, and ask them to join you in demanding that this fabricated criminal case be closed.

Send information about your solidarity actions as well as copies of letters, faxes, and media publications to our e-mail address: info@khimkibattle.org

Campaign for the Release of the Khimki Hostages

Telephone: +7 (915) 053-5912

E-mail: info@khimkibattle.org

Website: http://khimkibattle.org

*Photos courtesy of Anna Artemieva (Novaya Gazeta), via Vlad Tupikin.

The Khimki Hostages Need Your Solidarity!

http://khimkibattle.org

In July and August 2010, as forest fires blazed all across Russia, the French construction company Vinci and its Russian partners were engaged in destroying a forest near the Moscow suburb of Khimki. The town administration backed their actions using a combination of lawlessness and direct violence: forest defenders were attacked both by local police and extreme right-wing thugs. The coordinated actions of grassroots activists have put a temporary halt to construction of a planned Moscow-Petersburg toll highway through the Khimki Forest. However, two active defenders of the forest, antifascists Alexei Gaskarov and Maxim Solopov, remain in police custody on fabricated charges. In essence, they have been taken hostage by local authorities and police officials. If they are tried and convicted they could face seven years in prison. Meanwhile, police and other law enforcement agencies continue their hunt against other activists, especially those with connections to the antifascist movement.

The next pre-trial detention hearing for the two young men is scheduled for late September. Join our International Days of Action –September 17–20, 2010 – to demand their release. Our main slogans are Freedom for Alexei Gaskarov and Maxim Solopov! and End the Persecution of Forest Defenders and Antifascists! For more details, go to our web site.

The Campaign for the Release of the Khimki Hostages calls on people from around the world to fax messages of protest to the Khimki municipal court and Russian law enforcement agencies on September 20, 2010. You can find the details here.

What You Can Do Right Now

1. Repost our appeal and your own opinion about the case on your web site or blog. Forward these texts to friends, comrades, and anyone else you think might want to participate in this solidarity campaign.

2. Write e-mails to international organizations, Russian government officials and the development companies involved in the toll highway project: they all either are in a position to help secure release of the Khimki hostages or bear indirect responsibility for their continued imprisonment. Please take twenty minutes right now to send your letters and petitions to the organizations listed here, as well as to inform your friends, colleagues, and acquaintances. Your help might prove decisive in saving the Khimki Forest and its defenders.

3. If you are prepared to help the persecuted activists in other ways or would like to share advice on how to deal with European and Russian official organizations and companies, please write to us at:

info@khimkibattle.org, collaboration@19jan.ru,19jan.solidar@gmail.com, ecmoru@rambler.ru

How Things Are Done in Khimki

Since the launch of the project to build a toll highway through the Khimki Forest, the Khimki town administration has become infamous for its gangster-like methods of “working” with local residents. Over the past three years, forest defenders have suffered numerous arrests and other forms of harassment by local police, as well as physical attacks carried out by “anonymous” hired thugs, including neo-Nazis. These actions by the Khimki administration and its partners are explained by the significant commercial interest they have in seeing that the highway construction project is completed. The planned highway would be the first such toll road in Russia, connecting the country’s two largest cities, Moscow and Petersburg. Along with the highway itself, the project includes plans for the construction of service and maintenance infrastructure, hotels, and residential buildings. The project thus promises enormous profits if realized, and that is why its backers are so keen to ignore both the law and the value of individual human lives. The lives and freedom of two forest defenders and antifascists, Alexei Gaskarov and Maxim Solopov, are today threatened. They were arrested and falsely charged in revenge for a spontaneous demonstration that took place outside the Khimki town hall on July 28, 2010. Practically speaking, Alexei and Maxim have been taken hostage. At the same time, the Russian police and other law enforcement agencies have unleashed an unprecedented campaign of persecution directed against all antifascists. In violation of all legal norms, these activists have been forcibly detained and taken in for questioning by police, who have used physical and other methods of coercion to obtain the testimony they want to hear. The police have also conducted illegal searches of antifascists’ apartments. Under such circumstances there can be no doubt that the Khimki administration and the police intend to take new hostages who will join Gaskarov and Solopov behind bars.

The entire story of the Moscow-Petersburg toll road project has been punctuated by threats and dozens of physical attacks against activists, by the arsons of their homes and cars. Mikhail Beketov, editor of a Khimki opposition newspaper, was severely beaten and left for dead. He miraculously survived but he is now confined to a wheelchair and unable to speak. The editor of another local newspaper, Anatoly Yurov, has been beaten three times, suffering various injuries, including a brain concussion. The last time he was attacked, he suffered nine knife wounds. Newspaper layout editor Sergei Protazanov was cruelly beaten by persons unknown and died from his injuries the following day. After receiving numerous threats, local civil rights activist Albert Pchelintsev was kidnapped; his kidnappers shot him in the mouth with a pneumatic pistol and threw him out on the street. Albert survived this attacked, but his vocal chords were severely damaged. Pensioner and forest defender Alexander Parfyonov was attacked outside his home; his assailants wounded his arm. Two attempts have been made on the life of activist Vitaly Kapyttsev: an unknown assailant attempted to stab him to death outside Kapyttsev’s home at night, and later a bomb was thrown through his window. Activist Yevgenia Chirikova has been a constant target of crude harassment on the part of the police and attacks by unknown assailants: a person unknown tried to run her over with a car, and her husband has been physically attacked. There has been no official reaction to most of these attacks and in many cases the police have not even opened investigations. Local journalists and activists know of many other instances in which the Khimki administration has broken the law, as well as of its connections with the criminal world and neo-Nazis.

When developers began destroying the Khimki Forest in July 2010, environmentalists, antifascists, and political activists joined local residents in defending it. Although they did not have an official permit to clear-cut the forest, the loggers were guarded by regular police, private security guards, and neo-Nazis. On several occasions, groups of “persons unknown” wearing shirts and other clothing with neo-Nazi logos attacked forest defenders while police stood by. After these incidents, OMON riot police arrested the activists, not the hired thugs. The logging of the forest continued despite numerous petitions, pickets, and demonstrations. That is why antifascists and anarchists carried out a spontaneous demonstration in late June outside the Khimki town hall. During the demonstration, a few windows were broken, and demonstrators spray-painted the slogan “Save the Russian forest!” in two places on the wall. This action was widely reported and discussed in the press. None of the demonstrators was arrested during or immediately after the action in Khimki. But the following day two well-known social activists, Alexei Gaskarov and Maxim Solopov, spokesmen for the antifascist movement, were detained by police. Their arrests involved numerous violations of procedure and law: their arrest protocols were drawn up to report that they had been arrested “at the scene of the crime” and absurd “eyewitness” testimony was fabricated against them. Since then, the police have been forcing activists detained for questioning to testify against Gaskarov and Solopov. In the meantime, in the face of growing protests against the destruction of the Khimki Forest, the Russian authorities have conceded that the planned route for the toll highway needs to be reviewed. And yet Gaskarov and Solopov remain hostages of the highway, of the Khimki administration and police officials. They remain in prison as the police and prosecutors fabricate a case against them. If they are brought to trial and convicted as charged, they could face up to seven years in prison.

Find more information in the Prehistory of the Case of the Khimki Hostages

The Situation Is Critical

The safety and liberty of members of the antifascist movement are threatened. They very much need your solidarity. In late September, the Khimki court will again decide whether to keep Alexei and Maxim in prison or release them. We ask you to participate in our campaign to force the Russian authorities to release them and end its witch-hunt against forest defenders and antifascists.

On September 17–20, 2010, protest actions will take place outside of official Russian establishments all over the world. Rallies and other expressions of solidarity will also take place, as well as a media blitz to publicize the situation. September 20 is the proposed day for sending protest faxes to the Khimki court, the Khimki administration, and the Moscow Region prosecutor’s office. You can find details on planned actions, fax numbers, and other updated information on our web site: http://khimkibattle.org/.

Greenpeace Russia: Help Defend the Khimki Forest!

Editor’s Note. Online petitions are surely weapons of the weak, but the defenders of the Khimki Forest, which is currently being illegally razed to make way for an 8-billion-dollar toll highway between Moscow and Petersburg, need all the help they can get right now. (We have posted on the story here, here, and here.) Below, you’ll find a petition drafted by Greenpeace Russia and addressed to Xavier Huillard, chairman and chief executive officer of VINCI, the French company contracted to build the highway. If you go to the link provided, you’ll find the preface to the petition (in Russian) and their suggested appeal to Mr. Huillard (in French). To sign onto the appeal as is, you merely need to type in your name (Имя) and e-mail address, and hit the send (Отправить) button. Or you can write your own letter by changing the text in the subject heading (Тема) and the message (Сообщение) field. Below, we have provided translations of the original Russian and French texts.

For more suggestions on how to help, see the EarthAction website.

It would probably also not hurt to contact VINCI directly.

________

http://www.greenpeace.org/russia/ru/lesnadzor

HELP DEFEND THE KHIMKI FOREST: Sign a petition addressed to the construction company VINCI!

This major French company has been contracted to build a road through the Khimki Forest.

In April of this year, at a meeting between the presidents of Russia and France, French businessmen implored Dmitry Medvedev to take care of the situation with the Khimki Forest. As the president said then, “It’s a pity about the oaks, of course,” but then he ordered his aides to take care of this “oaky” [i.e., in Russian, “stupid” or “stubborn”] problem.

And boy have they have taken care of it! The forest is now being illegally cut down. The forest’s defenders are attacked by hired thugs and illegally detained by regular police and OMON riot cops; they are threatened with physical reprisals. But back home in France, Yves-Thibault de Silguy, Vice-Chairman and Senior Director of VINCI, is a knight of the French Legion of Honor. Does such an esteemed gentleman really want to be an accomplice to the destruction of nature and the nonobservance of civil rights in another country?

The Khimki Forest is one of the last large tracts of forest around Moscow, which is suffocating from automobile exhaust, fires, and soot as it is. Out of three possible routes for the Moscow-Saint Petersburg toll road, planners have chosen the route that will destroy the forest by splitting it in two. First the road will be built, but later it is quite possible that the remainder of the forest will be cleared to make way for villas, shopping malls, etc. Moreover, the alternate routes for the highway would not have such a serious impact on the Khimki Forest. According to developers, they are simply quite expensive, although according to their own documents, the alternate route that would cause the least damage to the forest is also the most economical. It is just that at this other site there are plans to build a golf club and a Formula-1 racetrack, and in Russia it is much cheaper to destroy a forest than to fight with those forces who allot land for golf clubs.

SEND AN APPEAL TO VINCI’S CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD [XAVIER HUILLARD]

We demand that VINCI retract its request to “take care” of the forest’s defenders, not participate in the construction of a road whose route runs through the Khimki Forest, and re-examine alternate routes for the highway.

[Suggested text of the appeal to M. Huillard]

A l’attention de Monsieur Xavier Huillard – Vinci tue la forêt de Russie

Monsieur Xavier Huillard,

Suite à la situation actuelle concernant le projet de la construction de l’autoroute à péage Moscou-Saint-Petersbourg nous sommes obligés de vous adresser ce courrier, la participation de votre société étant importante, dans le projet accrédité par le  Ministère de l’Économie, de l’Industrie et de l’Emploi du Gouvernement de la Fédération de Russie.

Malgré la disponibilité de nombreuses alternatives, la route doit traverser une partie de la forêt à proximité de la ville Khimki dans la banlieue moscovite. L’alternative choisie n’a pas de fondements logiques, car elle suppose la coupe de plus de 140 hectares de forêt de la banlieue moscovite – source d’oxygène pour la mégapole de Moscou.

Les organisations de défense de l’environnement, notamment, Greenpeace de Russie, sont opposées au passage de la route à travers la forêt et proposent de retourner aux autres alternatives proposées. Les écologistes font face à la résistance à la fois des pouvoirs publics russes, ainsi que des personnes inconnues, présentent sur le lieu de la coupe forestière.

Actuellement des citoyens-militants – des habitants de la ville de Khimki, tentant à s’opposer à la coupe de la forêt de Khimki, entendent des menaces physiques du côté des personnes inconnues, présentent sur le lieu de la coupe forestière et soutenues par la milice et par OMON (brigade anti-terrorisme et anti-émeute). Le 19 juillet des personnes inconnues ont dispersé  le campement de tentes des défenseurs de la forêt de Khimki. Jusqu’à présent des hommes patrouillent sur le territoire de la coupe forestière, en menaçant physiquement chaque personne à proximité.

Il faut rappeler qu’un des militants du mouvement « Défense de la forêt de Khimki » – le rédacteur en chef du journal local « Khmkinskaya pravda » Mikhaïl Beketov a déjà souffert été blessé. En 2008 il a été soumis à une agression brutale. Au cours des deux dernières années il a subi plusieurs opérations importantes et il est toujours alité. La voiture du journaliste a explosé avant les événements tragiques de 2008 et l’affaire a été classée.

Ces derniers jours la situation autours de la forêt de Khimki s’est aggravée davantage encore. Les hommes, montant la garde autour de la coupe forestière illégale, ont provoqué une bagarre et ont tabassé les militants écologistes en présence d’un député de la Douma, arrivé sur le lieu des événements. Seule l’intervention personnelle du député, qui a littéralement forcé la milice à prendre des mesures, a pu empêcher les graves conséquences des actes commis par ces personnes inconnues.

Il faut aussi noter, que le Centre TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL a publié sur son site une conclusion de l’expertise anticorruption : il s’agit de l’Arrêté du Gouvernement de la Fédération de Russie, adopté dans le cadre de la réalisation du projet de construction de l’autoroute fédérale Moscou-Saint-Petersbourg. Il est précisé dans ce document (voir Avenant 1), que le projet  comprend explicitement une composante corruption, étant donné que le ministre russe du Transport de la Fédération de Russie et des autres fonctionnaires administratifs y sont intéressés personnellement.

L’histoire de la coupe illégale de la forêt de Khimki est déjà livrée à une large publicité dans la presse mondiale, notamment dans Reuters, BBC, etc.  A cet égard nous sommes sûrs que la participation française à ce projet, injustifié du point de vue écologique avec l’alternative  du passage de l’autoroute à travers la forêt de Khimki, cause un dommage irréparable aux relations franco-russes et à l’image de la société participant au projet.

Nous espérons, que votre société a envie de n’avoir rien en commun avec ce projet, réalisé dans l’atteinte aux droits des citoyens de Russie et à l’environnement et dont le site de réalisation est surveillé par des hommes armés et masqués.

Nous exigeons une déclaration officielle immédiate de la part de la société VINCI, précisant qu’elle :

1) n’a rien en commun avec le projet, causant un dommage irréparable à la nature

2) exige d’examiner des alternatives au tracé de l’autoroute Moscou-Saint-Petersbourg qui ne seront pas liées à la destruction de la forêt de Khimki.

3) exige d’arrêter tous les poursuites et les agressions contre les défenseurs de la forêt de Khimki.

_____

Attn: Mr. Xavier Huillard

Re: VINCI Is Killing the Russian Forest

Given the current situation regarding the proposed construction of a toll road from Moscow to St. Petersburg, we are obliged send you this letter because the involvement of your company in this project (which has been approved by the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, and Ministry of Labor and Social Development of the Government of the Russian Federation) is crucial.

Despite the availability of numerous alternatives, the road will cross through a tract of forest near the town of Khimki in the Moscow suburbs. The route chosen has no basis in logic, because it involves the felling of more than 140 hectares of forest in the Moscow suburbs — a source of oxygen for the megalopolis of Moscow.

Environmental organizations, in particular, Greenpeace Russia, are opposed to the passage of the road through the forest and call on planners to re-examine the proposed alternatives. Environmentalists face pressure from both the Russian authorities and persons unknown who are present at the logging site.

Right now the grassroots activists and Khimki residents who are trying to oppose the clear-cutting of the Khimki Forest are threatened with physical violence by persons unknown at the logging site who are supported by the police and OMON riot/anti-terrorist police. On July 19, persons unknown broke up the tent camp of Khimki Forest defenders. Men are still patrolling the logging site, physically threatening everyone in the vicinity.

It should be remembered that one of the activists of the Movement to Defend the Khimki Forest — Mikhail Beketov, editor of the newspaper Khimkinskaya Pravda — has already suffered injuries. In 2008 he was subjected to a brutal assault. Over the past two years he has undergone several major operations and is still bedridden. The journalist’s car was bombed before the tragic events of 2008 and the case was closed.

These days the situation surrounding the forest Khimki has worsened further. The men who guard the illegal logging site provoked a fight and beat up environmental activists in the presence of a State Duma deputy who had arrived at the scene. Only the personal intervention of the deputy, who literally forced the police to take action, prevented these acts committed by persons unknown from having serious consequences.

Also note that Transparency International-R has published on its website its findings in an anti-corruption study dealing with the Russian Federation government decree adopted as part of the Moscow-Saint Petersburg federal highway construction project. It is stated in that document (see Addendum 1) that the project includes an explicit component of corruption, given that the Russian Federation Minister of Transportation and other government officials have a personal stake in the project.

The story of the illegal felling of the Khimki Forest has already garnered broad coverage from the international press, including Reuters, the BBC, etc. In this regard, we are confident that French involvement in this project, which is unjustifiable from the environmental point of view because it routes the highway through the Khimki Forest, will cause irreparable damage to Franco-Russian relations and the image of the company involved in the project.

We hope that your company wants to have nothing to do with this project, whose implementation involves the infringement of the rights of Russian citizens and the environment, and whose site is guarded by armed and masked men.

We demand an immediate official statement from VINCI stating that:

1) it wants nothing to do with a project that causes irreparable damage to nature;

2) it demands the consideration of alternatives to the proposed highway from Moscow to St. Petersburg that do not involve the destruction of the Khimki Forest;

3) it demands an end to all persecution of and attacks against Khimki Forest defenders.

Khimki: Territory of Lawlessness

Background information in the English-language press about the campaign to save the Khimki Forest:

• Yevgenia Chirikova: The Battle for the Khimki Forest
• Khimki Forest Defender Yevgenia Chirikova Is New Face Of Russian Civic Activism
• Erik Hoffner: Moscow Forest Battle Boils Over
• The Moscow Times: Engineering a Forest’s Defense

Eco-Defense website (in Russian)

In the following video, Yevgenia Chirikova, leader of the Movement to Defend the Khimki Forest, explains (in Russian) how the planned toll highway could easily be rerouted to bypass the Khimki Forest and how she was recently attacked by a man driving a car with Petersburg license plates.

____________

www.ikd.ru/node/14200

Khimki, Territory of Lawlessness: Khimki Forest Defenders Arbitrarily Detained at Bus Stop

It seems that in Khimki law enforcement officials have decided to ignore even the appearance of abiding by the law.

Today, August 2, at 12 noon, defenders of the Khimki Forest – approximately 50 peaceful citizens – arrived by bus at the Starbeyevo stop, where they were planning to monitor whether illegal clear-cutting was going on in this area. They had not even managed to assemble when police began detaining them. The first to be arrested were Yabloko party leader Sergei Mitrokhin and Left Front and Mossoviet leader Sergei Udaltsov (whom policemen seized with cries of “Let’s get Udaltsov!”).

IKD received this information from Ilya Budraitskis (Vpered Socialist Movement). As he was talking to us by telephone, he was also detained. He is now being taken to an unknown destination along with three other activists. Police have given them no explanations for their arrests.

Around nine or ten people total have been detained – for no reason whatsoever. These people were at the bus stop, far from the alleged site of the logging. Police have blocked the road into the forest. The Khimki Forest has become a territory where lawlessness reigns.

We remind readers that after an official request by Russian State Duma deputy Anton Belyakov, the Prosecutor General’s Office ordered that logging be halted and is conducting a review of the case. However, Teplotekhnik, Inc., the subcontractor, continues its destruction of the forest to make way for a Moscow-Saint Petersburg toll highway, although it does not have all the necessary permits for this work. As the Movement to Defend the Khimki Forest informs us, this firm, subcontracted by the federal corporation Roads of Russia, is headed by Alexander Semchenko, a bishop of the Baptist church and a former adviser to Putin on cooperation with religious organizations.

Moreover, the Russian federal government decree on the clearing of the Khimki Forest, dated 5 November 2009, was not ratified with the Moscow city government, which was obligatory insofar as the forest is part of the capital city’s green belt.  Alexander Muzykantsky, Moscow human rights ombudsman, has filed an appeal in this connection with the prosector’s office, which is reviewing the matter.

The logging of the forest continues all the same, and soon it will reach the homes of Khimki residents. Activists have brought a temporary halt to the razing several times insofar as Teplotekhnik does not have all the necessary permits. At present, the Prosector General’s office is reviewing the legality of its actions. But Teplotekhnik continues to fell the Khimki Forest because they want the money.

Call the Khimki police stations where activists are being held and ask why they have been arrested and when they will be released:

• Khimki Department of Internal Affairs: +7 (495) 573-0202
• Khimki Police Precinct No. 2: +7 (495) 573-3747

_________________

STOP POLICE REPRISALS AGAINST ANTIFASCISTS IN RUSSIA!

On July 30, Maxim Solopov and Alexei Gaskarov, two antifascist activists, were arrested in Moscow without formal charges of any kind. Maxim and Alexei are well-known public spokesmen of the growing movement of young people against neo-Nazi violence, and in recent years they have done much to expose the connections amongst government agencies, the police, and ultra-rightists in Russia.

Their arrests came on the heels of a series of dramatic events that unfolded in July around protests against the destruction of a forest in Khimki, outside of Moscow. Because they have a stake in clear-cutting the forest to make way for a multibillion-dollar toll highway between Moscow and Petersburg, big business and state bureaucrats have unleashed a full-scale campaign of violence against the local residents and environmentalists who make up the protest group. On July 23, their peaceful camp in the forest was brutally attacked by private security guards and a gang of ultra-rightist football hooligans hired by the construction company, while the police stood by, demonstratively refusing to intervene. The attacks against protesters continued during the week of July 26, along with the clear-cutting of the Khimki Forest, one of the largest green belts near Moscow.

On July 28, a group of radical antifascists estimated to number around 400 staged a symbolic action against corporate, police and neo-Nazi lawlessness by throwing smoke bombs at the building of the Khimki municipal administration, which bears direct responsibility for the situation that has developed around the forest.

The action was carried out in a matter of minutes, and so police were unable to respond in time and arrest any of the attackers. Despite the fact that they had no information about the identities of the people who participated in the action, the following day the police detained and searched the flats of people whose only crime is that they publicly express their antifascist and anti-capitalist stance. In addition, two journalists who photographed and videotaped the action on July 28 were also detained.

According to press reports, “solving” the case of the attack on the Khimki administration building has been made a priority at the very top, by the Russian Presidential Administration, which will now attempt to find the guilty parties whatever the cost. Knowing the tactics of the Russian police and secret services, we have no doubt that psychological and physical methods of coercion, including torture, might well be used in the current investigation, especially because investigators presently do not have a single piece of evidence that would link Alexei and Maxim to the attack.

It is no exaggeration to say that the future of the antifascist movement in Moscow depends on the outcome of this case. Police officials have already told the press that “it’s time to put them in their place” and smash this growing movement, which is not controlled by the authorities.

We call on all leftist and worker activists, antifascists and environmentalists to protest the police reprisals against Alexei and Maxim.

WHAT CAN YOU DO NOW?

1. Send protest letters or make calls to the following addresses and phone numbers:

Moscow Region Prosecutor’s Office

Malyi Kiselnyi per., d. 5

107031 Moscow

Russian Federation

news@mosoblproc.ru

•

Khimki Prosecutor’s Office

ul. Mayakovskogo, d. 30

141400 Khimki, Moscow Region

Russian Federation

+7 (495) 571-6235

•

Khimki Department of Internal Affairs

(current location of detainees)

ul. Gogolia, d. 6

141400 Khimki, Moscow Region

Russian Federation

+7 (495) 572-0202 (Duty Officer)

+7 (495) 572-1209 (Administrative Office)

•

2. Submit protest letters to the Russian Federation embassy or consulate in your area or, better yet, organize protest actions outside embassies demanding the immediate release of Maxim Solopov and Alexei Gaskarov.

3. Send an online letter to the Russian president.

4. Distribute this information as widely as possible.

Campaign Facebook Page: Freedom for Russian antifascists Alexei Gaskarov & Maxim Solopov!

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[Editor’s Note: We have adapted the following blog post to make it more readable.]

community.livejournal.com/himki_protest/3338.html

Moscow / Khimki: The Battle with the Adminstration Heats Up

In recent days, the battle to stop the destruction of the forest in the Moscow suburb of Khimki has heated up. Activists have been protesting the building of an $8 million high-speed toll highway between Moscow and Petersburg. This highway would destroy beautiful forestland around Moscow. Environmentalists say the highway can be built to bypass the old oak forest.

The flashpoint has been in the city of Khimki, right outside Moscow. There is a history of violence sponsored by the local authorities in this town. In the most famous case of political terrorism, in November 2008, Mikhail Beketov, outspoken editor-in-chief of the local newspaper Khimkinskaya Pravda (Khimki Truth), was savagely beaten in front of his home. The attack was clearly related to his criticism of local authorities and the planned highway. As a result of his injuries, one of his legs was amputated, and head traumas he suffered during the attack have left him unable to speak. Current reports on his condition indicate that his other leg may have to be amputated.

Khimki authorities thus have a reputation for dealing brutally with anybody who dares oppose them.

Direct actions started on July 14, when the logging was to begin. Eco-activists set up a camp in Khimki to take direct action against the deforestation. They have employed blockades on the train lines leading to the logging site.

http://wisegizmo.livejournal.com/35007.html

On July 23, at about 5 a.m., the protestors and two journalists were attacked and beaten by a gang of several dozen thugs with white T-shirts masking their faces. From all indications, this was an organized group of neo-fascists, judging by the symbols on their shirts. The police arrived and began arresting the activists, not the attackers, which indicates that this was an attack carried out in coordination with the police. Security guards hired by the firm carrying out the destruction of the forest also took part.

15 people were arrested at that time. Later in the day, the police arrived again, taking away dozens of people.

When some activists tried to protest in front of the White House in Moscow against construction of the highway and the illegal destruction of the forest, they were also immediately arrested.

On July 28, a large group of people (most reports put the numbers between 400 and 500) marched on Khimki. Some of them (70-100 people) attacked the local administration building. This is shown in the videos below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KBYKd8W6p8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqQFtJMBPbс

Our Friends Have Been Illegally Arrested

On the morning of July 29, antifascist Alexei Gaskarov was summoned to the local police station for a conversation.  There he was handed over to Extremism Department officers and taken away to an unknown destination. Most of the provisions in the law that stipulates operating procedures for the police were violated. None of his relatives was informed, and no notice was served to state the reasons for the arrest. That same evening, antifascist Maxim Solopov was called in for a conversation near the Okhotny Ryad metro station after he appeared on a Russian News Service radio broadcast. Maxim went to the meeting spot but no conversation took place. He was put into a car and taken to Khimki. During the night, the flats of Gaskarov and Solopov were searched. Alexei Gaskarov’s flat was searched without a warrant or other required papers being served, without the confiscated items being inventoried and without a neutral witness present to certify the search [as required by Russian law].

We clearly understand why it was Alexei and Maxim who were arrested. They are well known in public and take the risk and responsibility of being publicly open. They have never concealed their identities, speaking on the record in the press and on the radio. They were arrested because they are the only antifascists well known to the police. The police are now under pressure from the presidential administration to solve the case: that is why someone had to be arrested.

As Alexei’s and Maxim’s faces are known to the police and mass media, it would have been quite stupid of them to take part in violent actions.

We clearly understand that to ask for their release is to cry for the moon no matter how hard we long for it. We appeal for the observance of law, although this institution in our country is violated by the guardians of the law themselves. We demand that the legal proceedings against our friends not be turned into a show trial. We demand that the mass media be allowed access to the proceedings. We demand that the authorities abide by their own laws.

We know that we have the truth on our side and that we will win the day.

On July 31, the first closed court proceedings on the case took place in Khimki. Nobody was allowed into the courtroom. The building was surrounded by groups of riot police officers and water cannon trucks, and a number of ambulances and police cars were parked in the vicinity. Because Alexei and Maxim had already been in custody for 48 hours, formal charges should have been brought against them, but they still have not been formally charged with any crimes, and the court hearing was postponed until Tuesday, August 3, with the judge qualifying the case as a “tough” one.

It has also come to light that their arrest reports state that Alexei and Maxim were detained at the crime scene, which contradicts the police’s original statement that no one was arrested after the incident outside the Khimki administration building. This suggests that the cases against them are being fabricated.

We are disturbed by how the case is proceeding and would appreciate any international support.

Funds are being raised to pay for Alexei and Maxim’s legal defense, and your help would be critical here. Please go to the links below to transfer money:

WebMoney

R113104516303 — rubles
Z170280498291 — USD
E318901103117 — Euro

Яндекс.Деньги

41001434285763

A regular bank account will be opened as soon as possible. More information to follow.