The litany of searches and seizures that has paralyzed the activities of the “Educated Media” Foundation, successor of NGO “Internews,” is surprisingly unique and yet typical at the same time. The strangulation of “Internews,” an organization that in ten years of operating in Russia has trained approximately 15,000 reporters and other media professionals in Russia’s heartlands, obviously could be stopped by neither the appeal to the Russian president signed by 2,000 journalists nor the recent inquiry by Russia’s Public Chamber nor the Congress of the International Federation of Journalists that is being held as we speak. There are still no clear answers to questions, but there is obvious, orchestrated consistency in the actions of various government entities trying to strangle an organization that seems to have fallen into disfavor. Tax Inspectorate staff have recently impounded the Foundation’s bank accounts; on May 4, the Fire Department paid them a visit in their office; and back in April officers of the Department of Economic Security of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs had seized some operational documentation and server equipment. Judging by the looks of how things have been progressing so far, the next visit will probably be by the Sanitation and Environmental Compliance people… The Tverskoy District Court of Moscow has recently denied the motion by “Internews” director Manana Aslamazyan’s attorneys to strike down as legally unjustified the extension of preliminary investigation of her case.

Yet another trend has made itself abundantly evident in the situation with “Educated Media” as well. It is not infrequent that Russian law enforcement agencies engage in ‘inverse ad hominem’ attacks whereby they transplant charges brought against a private citizen onto the organization run by this individual even when alleged transgressions are noting but a personal doing of that individual. To recap this particular situation, “Internews” found itself in hot water after on January 31, 2007, a criminal case had been initiated against Ms. Aslamazyan charging her with currency contraband. Earlier that month, she had brought into the country 9,500 Euros, which is roughly $2,800 over the established limit of $10,000. Two and a half months later, Ministry of Internal Affairs officers came into her office to seize, of all things, not any financial and accounting documentation but all server equipment and operational documentation. The reason they provided was that they were looking for documents “possibly relevant to the criminal case.” Exactly how documents about reporter competitions and training workshops may advance the investigation, the policemen failed to explain. The “Internews” saga is not an exception. It is a rule. Investigators and law enforcement officers often bring activities of companies and NGOs to a screeching halt when they look for proof of guilt of that entity’s leader. In the course of investigating the case of Ms. Jana Yakovleva and Mr. Alexei Protsky, chief executives of “Sofex-Khimzashchita” (Sofex-Chemical Protective Clothing) charged with illegal circulation of highly potent or toxic substances, officers of the National Drug Enforcement Authority who were looking for proof of the suspects’ guilt had impounded not only materials that had to do with legality of import and sale of ethyl ether, but also the company’s accounting documentation. This significantly complicated the conduct of the company’s operations at the time. The technique of seizing corporate documents to meet the burden of proof of an individual’s guilt has been used not only to silence the inconveniently outspoken civic leaders. The same technique has been used by “corporate raiders” as well.

Hoping that the law enforcement officials and investigators [of this case] will be reigned in by a less intrusive set of orders is an unrealistic expectation. Only amendments to the current Code of Criminal Procedure could conceivably turn around such outrageous methods of law enforcement. The investigators should be required to clearly stipulate what specific material evidence and documentation they intend to discover during search and seizure activities. They should also be prohibited from impounding any documents that have nothing to do with the case at hand.

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