On July 2, 2013, Judge Olga Khaydukova of the Dzerzhinsk Town Court of the Nizhny Novgorod Region rejected a petition to ban Stanislav Dmitrievsky’s 2009 book, International Tribunal for Chechnya: Prospects of Bringing to Justice Individuals Suspected of War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity During the Armed Conflict in the Chechen Republic. The petition, filed on December 6, 2012, under Article 13 of Russia’s Federal Law on Countering Extremism, sought to ban the book on the grounds that it was “exremist” in nature. Court-ordered expert evaluation by Andrey Smirnov and Gelena Mazhnik concluded that the study was scientific and not extremist.
On October 3, 2017, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the Russian Federation violated Dmitrievsky’s right to freedom of expression and granted him €10,000 in moral compensation. Dmitrievsky filed a complaint that Russia had violated Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights (freedom of expression). This concerned his conviction under Article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code, for publishing “extremist” content.
As recently as April 2021, Dmitrievsky and his family remain subject to threats. On April 21, 2021, Dmitrievsky wrote on Facebook that three “cops” approached his mother demanding to speak with Dmitrievsky.
Case History
Stanislav Dmitrievsky is a human rights advocate and the editor-in-chief of Pravo-zashchita (Rights Defense), a monthly newspaper of the now banned Russian-Chechen Friendship Society (RCFS). The Nizhny Novgorod Foundation to Support Tolerance, a local human rights NGO, was founded in 2007 by Dmitrievsky and other activists to continue the human rights work of its predecessor, the RCFS. Dmitrievsky is also the chief director of the Russian-Chechen Information Agency, an independent media outlet. Stanislav Dmitrievsky and his colleague Oksana Chelysheva received the Amnesty International 2006 Special Award for Human Rights Journalism Under Threat.
On September 2, 2005, Dmitrievsky was charged under Article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code for “actions aimed at inciting hatred or hostility and at disparagement of either an individual or a group of people according to their gender, race nationality, background religious beliefs, as well as belonging to any social group that are committed publicly or through mass media outlets.” On February 3, 2006, he was found guilty at the Soviet District Court in Nizhny Novgorod of “inciting interethnic hatred by using the mass media” and was sentenced to four years of probation with a two-year suspended sentence.
In addition, from February to April 2005, RCFS members and Stanislav Dmitrievsky and colleague Oksana Chelysheva in particular, were subjected to a smear campaign that was launched in mass media venues of Nizhny Novgorod. On March 14, 2005, threatening leaflets were distributed in the neighborhood of Nizhny Novgorod where RCFS editor Oksana Chelysheva lives. The leaflets, which gave her home address, labeled Chelysheva as a traitor, a supporter and a helper of “terrorist” activities carried out by Chechen fighters, and claimed that she was financed by them. The authors of these leaflets are yet to be identified.