To Chiefs of International Organization for Mass Media Freedom
from Naum Nim, Editor-in-Chief of the Magazine Index/Dos'e na tsenzuru

July 10, 2000

Dear colleagues,
I should like to attract your attention to the dangerous practice of Federal Security Service (FSB) which tries to introduce in the mentality of the society the idea that cooperation of Russian citizens with foreigners in the field of information may be qualified as high treason.

The fact is that the article 275 of Penal Code contains not only evident formulas as espionage and divulgation of secret information but any assistance for foreign organizations (or their representatives) that causes damage to the security of Russia. However till now the secret service refrained from application of this formula of the article 275. They tried to construct charges of espionage in the known cases of Mirzoyan, Nikitin and Pasko but did not succeeded. The prosecution failed not only because the charged were unsound and unproved. Alas, the main cause of just solution of courts was the attention of mass media - the courts did not dare to agree with charges not convincingly proved.

When court processes of this kind do not attract attention of journalists courts obediently agrees with charges founded on the bare words of secret service.
Now the secret service tries (and succeeds in it) to take such cases out of sphere of journalists' attention. For the beginning they ask not to hurry and intervene in the investigation. Then they dose the information under the pretext of secrecy. Then the court indoors passes sentence. It seems to be a civilized process but all participants of investigation have to sign an obligation not to divulge the materials of investigation (which is understood by investigators as the ban to divulge any information, even on the illegal methods of investigation). Meanwhile the Prosecution itself briefly informs that the guilt is proved. All this time the accused is in the torture conditions of Russian prison and absolutely depends on the investigators that ignore laws regulating the treatment of the accused.
In other words, the investigation and court are absolutely uncontrolled by the society and out of the field of its attention. This creates a very good soil for falsifications of the high treason cases.

In the beginning of July the news agencies inspired by FSB informed on a another "spy scandal".
The high official of the Foreign Ministry Moiseyev was charged with high treason in South Korea favour. They informed that the Korean spy was caught in flagranti, with secret documents handed to him by Moiseyev.
In the fact, these secret documents were the text of conference which Moiseyev read in public in course of Russian-Korean seminar.
The case of Moiseyev became the most rough falsification of FSB in recent years. One cannot be concerned with the fact that the court obediently agreed with all unbased accusations of FSB and passed the sentence of guilty. And made the sentence itself secret trying to conceal that the charge was not proved.

You can find more details of this case on the site of "Index/Dos'e na tsenzuru" magazine

Even more dangerous is the case of Igor Sutiaguin because FSB openely declared that Sutiaguin is guilty so far as he handed information to the foreign representatives in damage of state security. He is not charged with espionage or with divulgation of secret information: he had no special permission to work with documentation of this kind, he is charged with passing information.
More details you can find on the site www.case52.org

So every journalist who cooperates with foreign colleagues and every citizen of Russia who works, for instance, with foreign grants may be charged with te article 275.

Dear colleagues,
I hope you will raise this problem in mass media because our experience proves that this is almost sole possibility to attract attention of Russian mass media and Russian society to the dangerous intentions of secret service to restore the total control on the communication of Russians with foreigners.

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