Subject: [CivilSoc] Commandos Storm NGO Offices in Moscow
From: Center for Civil Society International (ccsi@u.washington.edu)
Date: Tue Aug 29 2000 - 23:55:00 EDT
This message Xposted from Johnson's Russia List, #4484
30 August 2000 <davidjohnson@erols.com>
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Moscow Times
August 30, 2000
Police Storm Glasnost Foundation
By Sarah Karush
Staff Writer
Masked commandos wielding automatic rifles charged into the office of
a human rights organization, held a dozen people facedown on the
floor for 40 minutes and then left without a word, said witnesses
Tuesday.
Sergei Grigoryants, head of the Glasnost Foundation, said about 10
commandos and a police lieutenant, who during the raid introduced
himself as Ivanov from the 18th precinct, broke down the back door of
the office at about 7 p.m. Monday.
About a dozen people were in the office at the time, discussing plans
for an emergency congress of human rights activists.
The commandos forced everyone--including a 10-year-old child--to lie
on the floor, according to Grigoryants, who said that one of the
masked men kicked him in the head and back.
The police did not check any documents and did not offer any
explanation as to why they came, he said.
"They knew exactly where they were going," said Grigoryants in a
telephone interview Tuesday.
"This was a conscious, government action aimed at intimidating civil
society," he said.
"They knew exactly where they were going," said Grigoryants in a
telephone interview Tuesday.
The Glasnost Foundation is a harsh critic of the war in Chechnya and
the Federal Security Service, or FSB. The organization conducts an
annual conference titled "The KGB: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow."
Ivanov could not be reached for comment Tuesday at the 18th precinct,
where other officers confirmed that there was a patrol officer of
that name. An officer who gave his name only as Alexander
Nikolayevich and said he was in charge of all patrol officers at the
18th precinct said he knew nothing of the operation at the Glasnost
Foundation.
Grigoryants said that before they broke into the office, located in a
residential building on Tsvetnoi Bulvar in central Moscow, the police
knocked on the door. When he asked who it was, Ivanov said he was the
local patrol officer.
But Grigoryants said he knows his local beat cop and he is not
Ivanov.
"I said, 'You're not my patrol officer and I didn't call you,'" said
Grigoryants, adding that Ivanov did not show him a warrant.
After Grigoryants returned to the meeting, he said the police
attempted to break down the front door, but failed. They then went
around the back and easily broke through the wooden door.
The police held them on the floor until a police captain showed up,
said Grigoryants.
"He ordered me to show my documents, and I said, 'According to the
law on police, you must show me your documents first.' He refused to.
He said, 'You know the laws too well,'" said Grigoryants.
The captain and the rest of the officers then left without offering
an explanation, he said.
Ernst Chyorny, a leader of the organization Ecology and Human Rights
who was present during the raid, said that after police left he found
his bag, which he had left in another room, had been gone through.
Chyorny said an account of the incident that he sent out by e-mail
did not go through the first time he tried to send it Monday.
Grigoryants said the message was likely blocked by the FSB because
Chyorny originally had the word "glasnost" in the subject line.
Simon Saradzhyan contributed to this report.
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