The Russian representative at the OSCE conference called the RCFS an extremist organization

On March 29, 2007, the OSCE Conference on Freedoms of Assembly, Association and Expression opened in Vienna .

The first meeting of the conference ended with an official statement by the representative of Russia, who expressed his indignation at the presence of a representative of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society (RCFS), which the diplomat called an "extremist organization," was present at the conference.

The official speech was supplemented by replicas of well-known political scientist Sergei Markov, who arrived with an official Russian delegation, who sharply condemned the presence of the RCFS as an organization not only "extremist", but also "associated with terrorists." Markov made these statements in a plenary discussion, as well as at a briefing on the situation with basic civil liberties in Russia, which was organized as part of the conference by the SOVA Center with the participation of the Center for the Development of Democracy and Human Rights and the Juriks organization .

A few things need to be clarified in this regard.

Firstly, the OSCE conferences are open in nature, and any NGOs attend on the basis of "self-registration".

Secondly, the RCFS was not recognized as an extremist organization in Russia, but was liquidated due to violations related to the law "On counteracting extremist activities" (without even discussing the issue of the unjust sentence of the leader of the RCFS, St. Dmitrievsky, which underlay the liquidation of the RCFS) . This is far from the same thing. Recognition of an organization as extremist would entail a ban on its activities and criminal liability for its continuation, which did not happen in the case of the RCFS.

Thirdly, contacts of the RCFS with such figures as Aslan Maskhadov cannot be considered "connections with terrorists", since the court did not recognize Maskhadov as a terrorist, and not any contact even with a recognized terrorist can be considered a form of "connection" with him (for example, interviews or political negotiations).

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