Boris Stomakhin

Boris Vladimirovich Stomakhin (Russian: Борис Владимирович Стомахин) (born August 24, 1974, Moscow) is a Russian Jewish political activist, journalist, and editor of dissident periodicals. He advocated independence of unrecognized Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, argued that Chechen rebels were freedom fighters who had the right to conduct war with the Russian Federation, and compared President Vladimir Putin to Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milošević. He was convicted to five years in prison on charges of inciting ethnic hatred and making public appeals for extremist activity. The conviction is disputed by human rights protection organizations ARTICLE 19, Committee to Protect Journalists, and Union of Councils for Soviet Jews.

Journalism and political activism

Since 2000, Boris Stomakhin was an editor of the monthly newspaper "Radical Politics". In addition, he contributed numerous materials to Kavkaz Center, the radical Islamic internet agency that promotes the independence of Chechnya and is maintained by Chechen separatists.

Stomakhin claimed that Russian troops in Chechnya are "occupiers" and compared President Vladimir Putin to Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milošević. According to his court sentence, Stomakhin also stated that modern Russia is an Evil empire and therefore must be destroyed, and considered Shamil Basaev and Salman Raduev as heroes of the Chechen resistance whose terrorist activities are legitimate. However, some human rights activists like Valeria Novodvorskaya and Yakov Krotov did not believe that he actually promoted any terrorist activities.

Stomakhin was a leader of a radical political group "Revolutionary Contact Association" (RCA). Other members of this organization are Pavel Kantor, Dmitry Tarasov, Ludmila Evstifeeva, and Pavel Luzakov. They organized a number of pickets against Russian foreign policy in Ukraine, Estonia, Belarus, Chechnya.

Stomakhin was accused of hate speech in December 2003. His home was raided in April 2004 and his computers and books were confiscated for the expertise. Stomakhin was interrogated. The Psychiatric expertise at Moscow Serbsky Institute found that Stomakhin is competent for the trial. Stomakhin escaped to the Ukraine seeking political asylum status, which was eventually denied.

Arrest and trial

Having returned to Moscow, Stomakhin was arrested on March 21 2006. Stomakhin tried to escape during his arrest and fell down from fourth floor of his building, according to his lawyer Alexei Golubev and news reports. His spine and bones were broken as a result.

He was sentenced to five years of prison for inciting religious and ethnic hatred, promoting violent change of constitutional regime, calls for violation of territorial integrity of Russian Federation, defamatory statements(articles 280 and 282 of the Russian Criminal Code).

Below are some excerpts from Stomakhin's articles cited as incriminating evidence in the court sentence:

• "Let tens of new Chechen snipers take their positions in the mountain ridges and the city ruins and let hundreds, thousands of aggressors fall under righteous bullets! No mercy! Death to the Russian occupiers!" (the article was written in response to rape and murder of Chechen women Elza Kungaeva by Yuri Budanov)
• "We, 'Revolutionary Contact Association' and 'Radical Politics' are united with the Committee 2008 and are ready to cooperate with it. However we [are] a lot more radical. We are for not waiting until 2008 and bothering ourselves particularly with the Constitution, but we are for calling people to overthrow the Putin's regime as soon as possible. And we do not see any possibility of preserving Russian Federation as a single state. But we are ready to unite with all allies, even those that are more moderate".
• "Bombing in Moscow subway was justified, natural and legal... The Chechens have full moral right to blow up anything they want in Russia after all that Russia and Russians did to them, none objections on humanism and philanthropy could be accepted."
• "All Chechnya is currently filled up with the same Budanovs, maniacs, blood lusting sadists, murderers and degenerates with epaulets . The entire Russian occupation army consists of such Budanovs".
• "In Chechnya Russian army ceased to exist as a military structure of state, being transformed into a devilish gang of marauders and killers, the gang intoxicated from narcotics".
• "Precisely the bloody, cannibalistic ferocity of this state against a small and defenceless mountain nation was the first to inspire our mind with this thought: Russia must be destroyed forever, a state that allows itself to do such things to entire nations must not exist at all!"
• "The Chechen heroes are going. Dudayev, Atteriyev, Khattab, and today - Raduyev. It is as if they are being devoured, swallowed by a terrible, black malodorous abyss. The name of that abyss is Russia. Russia's immeasurable baseness and perfidy, her pathological dishonesty and criminality as a country, a civilization, a historical agent."

Stomakhin pleaded not guilty. According to RIA Novosti, news agency, cited by the Committee to Protect Journalists he said he was "tried for his views and not for any real crime. ... In the articles, I expressed my opinion, with which people were free to agree or disagree." He said an opinion was not a “call to action.”

Commentaries

ARTICLE 19 international organization, which protects free speech, stated that "we do not believe Mr. Stomakhin’s comments can be interpreted as incitement to ethnic hatred." He is currently one of two journalists jailed for their professional activities in Russia according to Committee to Protect Journalists (this organization is a member of International Freedom of Expression Exchange). He was qualified as a prisoner of conscience" by the Union of Councils for Soviet Jews and as a political prisoner in an open letter send to G7 leaders by Russia's human rights activists Sergei Kovalev, Yelena Bonner, and Gleb Yakunin.

Valeria Novodvorskaya, government opposition figure, leader of the Democratic Union, claimed that the prosecution of Stomakhin was the start of a wider campaign, "because together with him, the entire human rights sector and the entire democratic movement will be put on trial for disagreeing with the majority, for not accepting the state policy of the Russian Federation, for sympathizing with the Chechen people, for anti-war demonstrations and pickets."

According to Micah H. Naftalin, Director of Union of Councils for Soviet Jews, "Bogus charges aimed at stifling dissent, cruel police tactics, ethnic bias, and blatant disregard for criminal procedural statutes are all on open display. We hope that others will join us in condemning this travesty of justice" . He noted "ethic bias" because Stomakhin was prosecuted as a "Jewish activist", according to him. Mr. Naftalin acknowledged that Stomakhin's statements were radical, but emphasized that Stomakhin did not do anything violent, whereas many other real hate crime cases were not prosecuted by Russian authorities.

A group of Russian citizens including Vladimir Bukovsky condemned the conviction of Stomakhin as prosecution of free speech. They noted that many famous Russian writers were very critical of Russian nation and cited Nikolai Chernyshevsky who said that Russians are "a pitiful nation of slaves. We are all slaves, from the top to the bottom [of society]".

Widow of Andrei Sakharov Elena Bonner compared Stomakhin with Soviet dissidents who were prosecuted for their writings by Yuri Andropov. Human rights activist Svetlana Gannushkina and politician Valeria Novodvorskaya argued that Stomakhin's writings while "outrageous" had not been a public threat: they were very unlikely to incite anybody

Journalist Vladimir Abarinov criticized court proceedings as an example of Kangaroo court He noted that the criminal case against Stomakhin was opened based on an article about Russian Orthodox Church that was not written by Stomakhin. It was decided by the court that Stomakhin actually copied this article from the Live Journal entry, as well as other publications of numerous news agencies. The authors of the original article were not ever accused of hate crimes. The authors of the original work disagree to share their responsibility with Stomakhin citing that he had reproduced their works without permission and distorted the original meaning.

Critics of the court decision were censured by Russian publicist Maxim Sokolov. In his article published in pro-governmental Izvestia after the conviction of Stomakhin he argued that Stomakhin's writings are worse than Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler and that hate speech must be prosecuted according to the article 282 of the Russian criminal code. He cited a text allegedly written by Boris Stomakhin, which claimed that "Russian Federation must be destroyed" by all available means including nuclear war, because all Russian citizens are collectively responsible for actions of their government with respect to Chechen people. According to Sokolov, the cited passage made application of the article 282 completely appropriate, although this text was not cited as incriminating evidence in the court sentence.

References

External links

• Official Court Sentence, dated November 20, 2006
• Web site in support of Boris Stomakhin
• Articles by Boris Stomakhin
• The article 'Death to Russia' by Boris Stomkahin in Google cache
• Revolutionary Contact Association website
• Revolutionary Contact Association website
• Another website of Revolutionary Contact Association