Translated material
Convicted of words
On Monday, the Supreme Court of the Crimea annexed by Russia, softened the sentence to the journalist Nikolai Semen , whom the Railway District Court of Simferopol sentenced to three years in September to conditionally for the article on the website of the Ukrainian Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Radio Liberty, Crimea Radio Radio, which has prescribed a trial period and forbidden Semena for three years to engage in public activities. Now this prohibition is reduced by 1 year.
Nikolai Semen wrote that the energy unit of the peninsula, which was then organized by Ukrainian nationalists and the Crimean-Tatar activists, undermining the supports of the power transmission line in the Kherson region, may become one of the steps, after which Russia will be forced to return Crimea to Ukraine. Semyon evaluated the blockade positively in the article, in the spring of 2014 he called the actions of Russia annexation, and the investigation considered this a call to violation of the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation. In fact, the journalist was tried for the opinion that Crimea remains part of Ukraine.
Now the lease agreements that were seized by the FSB employees are using Crimean media to "investigate" radio freedom activities
The process in the case of the seed lasted six months. Judge Natalya School ignored almost all defense petitions, including the recognition of unacceptable evidence of the surveillance results, which was held for the journalist before the permission of the court. When Semen was taken into operational development, it is not known, apparently, immediately after the start of the work of the Crimea. Realii website. The editors of the site then are located in the center of Simferopol in the office building. Now the lease agreements that were seized by the FSB employees are using the Crimean media to “investigate” the activities of Radio Liberty on the peninsula. The publication "Kryminform", which is believed to be related to the Minister of Internal Policy, information and communications of Crimea Dmitry Polonsky , even received the award of the 2017 journalist-2017 contest for one of these "investigations".
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Seeds collaborated with the Krime. Reta project from the moment of its founding. The case file contains several letters received by the operatives after hacking the journalist's email. In these letters, the seeds called for his leadership in Kyiv and Prague to pay attention to the safety of employees in the Crimea and introduce the rules of conspiracy. Apparently, he was already following him, trying to find signs of state treason.
The information received indicates the signs of a seed of unlawful activities
"According to the data obtained, the seeds supports sustainable ties with persons suspected of involvement in intelligence and other subversive activities of the Ukrainian special services. On the instructions of the latter, the seeds on a reimbursable basis carry out the preparation and transfer of a tendential texts on the situation in the Republic of Crimea, which are then used in special information to the interests of the Russian Federation. The information received indicates the signs of signs The implementation of unlawful activities provided for in Article 275 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation is a treason, ”the operational report said.
It is not clear who the FSB officers have in mind: either the editorial office of Radio Liberty, or the Polish journalist of the “ Vetsklav Radzivinovich ’s newspaper”, who was detained in Crimea with Semen in May 2014. Radzivinovich was then released, but then sent from Russia, depriving accreditation. One way or another, there were no signs of Gosizmen in the work of Semen, and a search in April 2015 was carried out in the case of calls to violation of the country's territorial integrity. "She (Russia. - RS) should return Crimea," - the words from the article of Semyon caused the accusation of separatism.
In the case file - several hundred pages with screenshots of the screen of the Semyon computer, which the program introduced before, shot every minute
Investigators conducted searches from seven journalists who collaborated with the Crimea. Realities website. Lawyer Alexander Popkov called this the defeat of the correspondent network on the peninsula, for the organization of which they took advantage of the case against Semyon. A computer was seized from him, which had long been hacked by the FSB operatives by that time, and archives over many years of work. The case file includes several hundred pages with screenshots of the seed of the seed of the seeds, which the program introduced before that filmed every minute and sent to the FSB control operatives in the Crimea and Sevastopol. Actually, the FSB officer Olga Ivanova did not even conduct a linguistic examination of the text of the Semena article not on the Crimea. Reali published on the website, but according to the drafts obtained as a result of the surveillance of the FSB operative Ilya Khomenko . The court questioned both the expert and the operative as witnesses of the prosecution.
In response, the side of the defense invited her experts: Linguist Elena Novozhilov , who called Ivanov and her examination incompetent, and psychologist Vladimir Rubashny , who proved that Semen had no intention of harm to his text, that the text was written in the framework of the discussion about the estimates of the energy unit. The court introduced both conclusions and testimony of experts to the case file.
But the basis of the defense line was the statement that is considered the key and in the appeal: "The limit of state sovereignty of the Russian Federation does not apply to the territory of the Crimea, de facto controlled by the Russian authorities." Semyon’s lawyers petitioned for the introduction of a number of international regulatory acts confirming the Ukrainian belonging of Crimea, and, surprisingly, the judge introduced them to the case. They introduced the resolution of the UN General Assembly 68/262, which is about the Ukrainian Crimea, extracts from the UN Charter about the principle of territorial integrity of the participating states and other acts. However, the judge ignored all this when making a decision.
The name, given the current relations of the two countries, sounds cynical, but the contract is ratified and claims: both parties respect each other's territorial integrity
In the appeal, lawyer Alexander Popkov again recalls that the Federal Law of Russia No. 24, which in 2004 established the border between Ukraine and Russia, has not yet been canceled, the border even under Russian law is still undergoing a Kerch Strait. Until the end of 2017, the treaty, cooperation and partnership between Russia and Ukraine continues to operate. The name, given the current relations of the two countries, sounds cynical, but the contract is ratified and claims: both parties respect the territorial integrity of each other, recognizing it indestructible.
"Thus, according to the international legal agreements, the Constitution of Russia and federal legislation, the State Russian-Ukrainian border between the Republic of Crimea and the Kherson region of Ukraine has not been established," the lawyer concludes in an appeal. Actually, the court in his decision did not even deny these statements, ignoring international acts. In the same way, the court “did not notice” the political science of Professor Kuban University Mikhail Savva , who wrote about the same, referring to the norms of international law.
During the linguistic examination, an inexplicably huge number of speech, grammatical and logical errors were made - 72
Regarding the main evidence of the prosecution - the linguistic examination of Olga Ivanova, who proved that the Semyon’s article has calls for separatism - the lawyer once again cites the conclusions of the specialist Elena Novozhilova. "The specialist explained that during a linguistic examination, an inexplicably huge number of speech, grammatical and logical errors were made - 72. The only number of errors of the alleged expert in the field of the Russian language indicates its incompetence," the document submitted to the Supreme Court says. Ivanova, who was interrogated as a witness, was forced to admit that due to the lack of a description of the methodology and the actual work in her examination, it is impossible to check the conclusions. She did not find a call in the article, as it turned out during the interrogation, but referred to a certain context, which influenced the decision on the guilt of Semyon.
During the process, the defense side tried to draw the attention of the court to the fact that the surveillance of the seed was illegal, was carried out before the court decision and its results should not be in the case file at all. In the appeal, Popkov again indicates that the permission to survive was issued on September 11, 2015, and the first screenshots from the Semyon’s computer were received two days earlier. The school judge did not bother. Popkov hopes that in the Supreme Court to the law "On operational-search activities" will be more attentive. However, the Supreme Court, according to the lawyer (and this is also indicated in the appeal), has already violated the law when he issued permission to survive retroactively. It turned out a vicious circle: the security forces climbed into the journalist’s computer, saw that he was preparing an article that they decided to use to initiate the case, on the basis of this they went to the court, which allowed surveillance, but a few days earlier to justify the digging of the operatives in the Semyon computer.
The court did not want to ensure the safety of witnesses in the Crimea and did not actually allow them to interrogate them
Protection and Semyon himself insisted on interrogation as witnesses of Mikhail Savva, who was preparing in the case a political science, and the editor -in -chief of the Krym.real project, Vladimir Prutula , but demanded immunity for them or the opportunity to act in video communications. The court did not want to ensure the safety of witnesses in the territory of Crimea and did not actually allow them to interrogate, despite the fact that the Pritula in the case file was called the head of the organization "leading subversive activities in the Crimea." "Crimea. Realities" in the case are called "a publication leading anti -Russian editorial policy." The refusal to call key witnesses has also become one of the grounds for the appeal. The behavior of the judge, who allowed witnesses not to answer the questions of lawyers, but called on in no case to be silent for the issues of state prosecution, Popkov called "a violation of the principles of adversarial and equal rights of the parties."
As a result, the lawyer demanded to cancel the verdict in relation to Semyon, to make a private definition of the investigation for all violations of the law, and before that, to finally interrogate Savva and Pritulu, to clarify the FSB operatives, how they were monitoring the journalist before the sanction of the court, and remove the materials of this surveillance from the case - as received illegally.
Since 2014, in addition to the work of Semyon in Crimea, at least three more affairs were aroused about separatism: against the head of the Majlis of the Crimean Tatar people, the Refat Chubarov , who is banned in Russia, who, in addition to criminal prosecution, is also prohibited from appearing in the Crimea, against his deputy Ilmi Umarov and the Crimean Tatar activist from Theodosius of Suleiman Kadyrov . The trial of Umarov, who was accused of calling for violation of the territorial integrity of Russia, allegedly expressed by him in an interview with the ATR television channel, went simultaneously with the process of Semyon, but ended with a real term in the penal colony.
The video was recorded and laid out by a resident of Tomsk, obviously from fraudulent motives, because he did not create any goodobat in the Russian outback
Menov recalled the appeal himself, with the wording of the distrust of the entire judicial system of Russia, but in fact under pressure in connection with negotiations of pardon. So that the President of Russia could issue a decree on pardon, and remaining classified, it was necessary that the verdict entered into force. Immediately after this, Umarov was taken through Anapa to the capital of Turkey, and then to Kyiv. The trial of Kadyrov began recently. Activist is accused of separatism not even for recording, but for a commentary on the video in VKontakte. "Suleiman Kadyrov agrees! Crimea is Ukraine, it has always been, is and will be! Thanks to the author for the video! I support !!" ( The spelling is preserved. - RS ), - it is written on the Kadyrov page under the video with a request to sacrifice the next volunteer battalion, which was supposed to fight in the Donbass. The video was recorded and laid out by a resident of Tomsk, obviously from fraudulent motives, because he did not create any goodobat in the Russian outback, but asked for money for it. In a strange way, he was condemned only to compulsory work and immediately fell under an amnesty. But now, for a commentary on his non -prohibited video, Suleiman Kadyrov is judged in the Crimea.
“An article on separatism is used by the authorities in relation to the objectionable, those who are opposition force and expresses their opinion on what happened in the Crimea and how Russia established its power here,” said Emil Kurbedinov’s lawyer and Kadyrov.
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On the International Day of Continuation of Impunity
For crimes against journalists - November 2 - President of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Tom Kent made a statement in which he spoke about numerous cases of persecution of journalists of our corporation and threats in different countries, including Russia. Among them, Tom Kent called Nikolai Semen.
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0:00 0:02:21"In 2017, our journalists became objects of attacks 34 times in the countries for which we work - the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Belarus, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Macedonia, and others. This included physical attacks, interrogations, raids, verbal attacks, judicial attacks, judicial assassins The sentences, the capture of the equipment were committed on our journalists due to the fact that journalism is their profession sometimes, ”the statement of Tom Kent said.
"The vast majority of those who did this did not suffer punishment. In most cases, government officials acted with impunity. And non -state structures were untied by their hands. On the contrary, our correspondents were exhibited as a target, as people who stopped the law. Journalism is a service that society provides for themselves. In the countries where we work, journalism often means that people take over what people take over Huge risk, ”said the President of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
He reminded the names of those RSE journalists/RS and their families who were in prison or under threat: this is Nikolai Semen (convicted in Russia annexed by a conditional term for journalistic activities), Stanislav Aseev, Saparmamed Nepeskuliev, Soltan Achilov, Aziz Yusupov.
"We urge you to respect international standards and obligations so that journalists around the world can engage in their work in security, under the protection of the law ... And so that they can report the news and give information that people need so," Tom Kent said.
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Anton Naumluk
Foreign Correspondent RS