‘Forgetting Their Fears,’ 17 Russian Rights and Environmental Groups Form Civic Coalition

Paul Goble

            Staunton, December 3 – Like all authoritarian states, the Putin regime relies on fear to keep the population in line. When its actions however vicious and cruel fail to instill fear, that regime like others in the past will be in serious trouble. There are growing indications that, as one activist put it this week, that Russians are “forgetting their fears.”

            A month after the Rusisan Supreme Court liquidated the For Human Rights organization, its founder and president Lev Ponomaryev refounded it under the same name at a Moscow conference at which 17 rights and environmental groups formed a new civic coalition (svoboda.org/a/30303054.html).

                The new movement will not have the status of a legal person, Ponomaryev says, thus limiting the ability of the Russian state to use the legal system against it.  He said many groups are ready to join the coalition, including For Human Rights, Russia’s Choice, Citizen and the Army, prisoner defense groups, and environmental activists like those at Shiyes.

            “Russia is in the process of transformation,” Ponomaryev continues, “and the task of the rights activists is to be an intermediary between the powers and society. We see that society is now exercised” on more and more issues.  And the new coalition will allow them to cooperate, support one another and share information.

            Valery Borshchev of the Moscow Helsinki Groups adds that the formation of this coalition is one of the few bright spots in what has been “a most difficult even catastrophic year” for rights groups.  Such organizations are “under threat” both directly through official pressure and by the regime’s creating Potemkin-like alternatives it controls.

            But the Helsinki Group activist said that “the roots of the human rights movement in Russia are too deep for the powers that be to destroy and weaken them.”

            Perhaps the most noteworthy development was the attendance at the meeting of environmental activists from the regions, people who have only rarely directly cooperated with Moscow rights activists. Among them was Dmitry Sekushin who has been part of the Shiyes anti-trash protests in Arkhangelsk Oblast.

            He called the meeting of environmentalists and rights activists “a signal event. That we now will formally unite is the right move. We are already supported by several dozen regional environmental activists, organizations and meetings, and in the near future, we are planning our common work and coordinating our actions.”

            “We need an exchange of experience because each of the regional environmental activists and movements has its own specific baggage of knowledge,” Sekushin said, adding that he and his colleagues are aware that by engaging in such actions, they may be putting themselves at risk of punishment by the state.

            “But we are speaking about the health and lives of our children, and therefore people are forgetting their fears.”