Anna Karetnikova is the coordinator of the Anti-War Club and a member of the human rights centre "Memorial". The Anti-War Club gathers and distributes information about the armed clashes and political and social situation in the Caucuses, searching for a way to peacefully resolve the Chechen conflict and other crises in the region. The organisation also campaigns against aggressive xenophobia, organises anti-war and anti-fascist demos in Russia and distributes information about these demostrations.

The political situation in Russia is characterised by a strengthening of authoritarianism and a growth in nationalistic mood in society. members fo the organisation may face danger from the powers/ authorities in Russia and Chechnya, who react negatively to the work of human rights defenders and opposition. They also receive threats from representative of nationalist movements and organisations.

"In present-day Russia the activity of both human rights organisations and individual HRDs comes with certain risks. The threat is posed both by the government and its various lawenforcement bodies, and also by radical nationalist and pro-government youth groups, who believe from what they are told, that HRDs are their main enemies.

At the state level threats are mainly expressed in a legislative-prohibitive form: in the amendment of legislation to obstruct the work of registered foreign and Russian human rights organisations which can lead to the closure of the offices and organisations of HRDs. Another instrument of influence is judicial pressure. In this way Stanislav Dmitrievskii, editor of the newspaper ‘Pravo-zaschita’ (Rights Protection) and director of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society (RCFS), was given a suspended sentence for publishing an interview with Ahmed Zakaev, then the RCFS itself was closed by the court for refusing to denounce its leader. Later, the authorities attempted to replace his suspended sentence with an actual term of imprisonment because he organised opposition ‘Marches of Dissent’ in Nizhnii Novgorod, and the use of unlicensed software.

Some organisations, including our group ‘The Anti-War Club’ refuse to register with the state, keep offices and use any kind of financial means, except our own. Our (and many others’) focus is on distributing information, and running the website voinenet.ru. Last year our site suffered a mass-distributed DdOS attack, from computers in various countries. The site was disabled for three weeks.

There was no investigation and the culprits were not found. This year a similar attack was suffered by the site of ‘Human Rights in Russia’ and other organisations’. The authorities also make HRDs the target of youth organisations under their control (e.g. ‘Ours’, ‘Youth Guard’, ‘Young Russia’). After President Putin’s speech in which he called HRDs ‘jackals of foreign embassies’ these organisations broke up street protests by HRDs or picketed the offices of HRDs.

A threat is also posed by extreme nationalists. Lists of ‘enemies of the nation’ are distributed on the Internet, and Anna Politkovskaya, murdered last year, was included in these lists; they also include Svetlana Gannushkina and Sergei Kovalev, and I and my colleagues in the organisation are in some of them too. We receive threats by email and telephone to our addresses and those of our families. This is primarily associated with our anti-Fascist work.We are trying to get criminal proceedings opened based on these threats.

HRDs in Russia frequently act as observers of opposition street protests.We try to stop civil rights violations and to record the events on photo and video. Unfortunately, the authorities threaten not only the ordinary participants but also the press and HRDs. Cases of use of force, detentions and beatings are not rare, and subsequent prosecutions for participation in these actions.

Threats are also faced by HRDs working in Russia’s ‘hot spots’ – especially in the Northern Caucasus Republics. People are faced with threats from local authorities and law machinery and with violence from criminal elements which has developed together with the law-enforcement bodies. When a conference was being held in Nazran (Ingushetia), three members of a video crew from the TV station REN-TV and the director of the Council of the Human Rights Centre ‘Memorial’ Oleg Orlov were kidnapped from their hotel, beaten up and thrown into a field."