For the purity of the software

On March 22, a preliminary hearing will be held in the Leninsky District Court of Krasnodar in the case of human rights activist, specialist in the field of countering xenophobia Anastasia Denisova. She is accused of illegal use of copyright objects (unlicensed software), committed by a person using his official position, and of the creation, use and distribution of malicious computer programs. According to Denisova’s colleagues, the criminal case is based on a study of computer equipment that does not belong to either the human rights activist herself or the Krasnodar regional public organization headed by her, the Youth Group for Tolerance “ETNIKA”, and the equipment was confiscated in violation of the law. The connection between the computers and Denisova’s organization was proven by the fact that text files were found on the computers in which the name “ETHNIKA” was mentioned. The validity of the examination is questionable, since, according to human rights activists, the cost of software products was inflated in order to reach the amount of damage necessary to open a case under the relevant article.

Denisova and her organization have been under pressure for a long time. In January 2007, three scheduled inspections were simultaneously launched in the organization - tax officials, employees of the Federal Registration Service and the Kuban Credit Commercial Bank worked. The organization was asked to pay more than 140 thousand rubles in fines for failure to pay income tax for a donation received. "ETHNIKA" won all the arbitration proceedings, but cannot use the current account. On August 27 last year, Denisova was detained at the Russian border when she was returning from Abkhazia. Unknown people searched her and interrogated her about her human rights activities. In September, the newspaper of the regional administration, Kuban News, published three publications discrediting the activities of several local human rights organizations, including ETHnIKA. Denisova and her colleagues wrote an article in response, but the newspaper's editor-in-chief refused to publish it.

Human rights activists associate the persecution of Denisova with her activities. A group of solidarity with Anastasia has been formed. All details can be found on the website

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