Press Releases

Statement #3 by the "Educated Media" Foundation

May 17, 2006

(Unofficial English translation - original in Russian)

Dear Colleagues, we are continuing to inform you of the developments surrounding Internews.

On May 11, 2007 the Moscow Court of Golovnya District has rejected the complaint filed by the Educated Media Foundation on the unfounded actions of the investigators and sent it for further consideration to the Moscow court of Savelovskij District.

The official comment by Mr. Viktor Parshutkin, the lawyer representing the interests of Ms. Manana Aslamazyan, director of the Educated Media Foundation.

“On May 11, 2007 the Moscow Court of Golovnya District has issued a ruling, according to which the complaint of Educated Media Foundation on the illegal removal of the finance and accounting documents and electronic data servers from its premises is being transferred to the Moscow Court of the Savalovskij District.    

The case is to remain with the Golovinskij District Court of Moscow for ten days, before this ruling will come into effect, and only then will be transferred to the Savelovskij District Court of Moscow. This decision has been reached because shortly before this hearing, the criminal case against Foundation’s president, Ms. Manana Aslamazyan was transferred from the line desk of the department of internal affairs of the Sheremetyevo Airport to another investigative body, the department of investigation with the sea and air transportation police authority of the city of Moscow.

The lawyers representing Ms. Manana Alslamazyan will file new complaints on the extensions of time effectively granted to the investigators and on restoration of the procedural order in this case shortly.

In addition, there will be a motion to cancel proceedings of the criminal case against Manana Aslamazyan as her actions did not constitute a violation of the criminal code. Her lawyers intend to file for an appeal in case this motion gets rejected.”

We would like to remind you that on April 18, 2007, the staff of the Department of Economic Security of the MVD have confiscated the entire accounting documentation as well as computer servers from our office. The Foundation appealed in court, by filing a complaint on the unreasonable actions of the investigator.  At the same time, the stakeholders of the Educated Media Foundation have filed a motion to release the confiscated documents and the electronic data servers.  They also have filed a petition with the Public Chamber under the President of the Russian Federation as well as with the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation, Mr. Valdimir Lukin with a request to get involved in the situation and stop prosecution of the whole organization as well as of its head, Ms. Manana Aslamzyan.

At present, the operations of our organization are suspended. Almost all of the staff members are on vacation. All of the information about the activities planned for May – June 2007 can be found in the press-release #1.