Date: Wed, 03 Feb 1999 22:24:59 +0300
From: Mikhail Tsovma <koalabear-AT-glasnet.ru>
Subject: [Fwd: searches and arrests of anarchists in Russia]


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Date: Wed, 03 Feb 1999 22:20:02 +0300
From: Mikhail Tsovma <koalabear-AT-glasnet.ru>
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To: art-b-AT-omega.berlinet.de, jaceks6-AT-diana.announce.com,
	koalabear-AT-glasnet.ru
Subject: searches and arrests of anarchists in Russia

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
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RUSSIAN SECRET POLICE SEARCHES AND ARRESTS 
ANARCHISTS

On February 2 in Moscow officers of the Federal Security 
Service (former KGB) held searches and interrogations as part 
of the so-called "Krasnodar affair". On November 28 three 
people were arrested in Krasnodar, Southern Russia. Gennady 
Nepshikuyev, 17 years old,  and Maria Randina, 23 years old, 
were arrested and charged with possession and production of 
explosives, third person, citizen of Czech Republic, was later 
released and extradited from Russia (the first two are still 
under arrest).

So far there is information of at least two searches held in 
Moscow on February 2 held in flats of Larisa Schiptsova and 
Vlad Tupikin. After a search was held in Larisa's apartment for 
a few hours she was arrested and transferred to Lefortovo 
(KGB) prison in Moscow. At this point there is no further 
information on the details of her arrest (there are reasons to 
believe that she is charged at least with possession of drugs).

The search held at Vlad's place lasted for 7 hours, as a results 
of this his computer, printer, letters for the last 3 years, all 
photos, diaries and notebooks, floppy disks and materials of 
the first 2 and an upcoming issue of Utopia magazine were 
confiscated.

During the search the following violations were registered by 
Vlad: the search was held simultaneously in different rooms, so 
there was no chance of thorough supervision, "witnesses" 
invited for the search participated in the search together with 
the officers, the carried bags in and out, went out to talk, etc. 
(Of which Vlad made an official complaint.) A total of 5 people 
were making the search, but only 2 are put down in the 
protocol. The searchers registered that they found "solid stuff 
wrapped in white paper" and "a small glass bottle of liquid". In 
response to that Vlad filed a written statement that he has 
reasons to believe that some things and papers found in his 
flat may have been put there during the search.

Then Vlad was taken to the FSB prison in Lefortovo, where 
investigation dept. of KGB is located. He was interrogated as 
for his familiarity with Larisa, Maria and Gennady and Larisa's 
attitude and statements concerning Krasnodar governor Nikolai 
Kondratenko who is a certified Nazi and anti-Semite. One of 
the investigators who dropped in said that he "would like to 
have more information on Larisa Schiptsova". "Your treatment 
will depend on that," he warned.

Interrogation lasted for more than 2 hours, but fortunately Vlad 
was let free and warned that representatives of Krasnodar 
procurator's office will further interrogate him next week (the 
"Krasnodar case" is investigated by them, while the Moscow 
searches were conducted by FSB officers). So far Vlad is 
considered a witness in this case. FSB planned to conducts 
more interrogations on February 3 (Larisa's relatives, one 
anarchist who happened to be in her place at the time of the 
search).

Please, spread this information as wide as possible, so that it 
makes further solidarity campaign easier to organize.

SOME BROADER CONTEXT

There is a big discussion in media and society of the dangers 
of extremism. Nevertheless, on January 31 about 200 Russian 
Nazis marched through the North of Moscow while police 
stopped and watched. Police chief later made public apologies 
to those Nazis whose documents were checked (this was 
registered by a TV crew). 

Everybody's is talking about putting a ban on Nazi parties, but 
nothing is actually done to stop the spread of Nazi 
propaganda. One of the obstacles to the "official" anti-extremist 
campaign is the refusal of the parliament to adopt anti-
extremist laws or even a notion of what fascism is.

On Feb 2 Yeltsin accepted resignation of the genera procurator 
of Russia "for health reasons" and signed a decree which 
outlines what one should consider "extremism", "national or 
religious hatred and "extremist publication" to be. (However 
bad the general procurator was, a leading Russian pro-
capitalist paper writes, he would have disagreed with 
introducing these notions through a presidential decree rather 
than a federal law adopted by the parliament.)

Throughout the last couple of years we also witnessed several 
cases of terrorist attacks coming from "the left" (Stalinists) - 
none of them lead to any casualties, most of them targeted 
monuments of Russian tsars, although were politically 
motivated. One of the young Stalinists was given 4 years 
recently in prison for blowing a memorial to the tsar's family, a 
few others are still being interrogated. Since the origin of the 
terrorist groups is vague in some cases, there were cases of 
searches and interrogations of former and acting anarchists in 
Moscow.

There is increased KGB activities in different fields recently 
(from "fighting economic crime" to monitoring everybody's e-
mail), while at the same time there are attempts to make laws 
even stricter - soon any picket outside a nuclear power plant 
may be officially called a "terrorist attack".

This report is based on Vlad's story with some additional 
comments by the translator, Mikhail Tsovma.

You can request further information from the following 
addresses:
koalabear-AT-glasnet.ru - Mikhail Tsovma
aln-AT-glasnet.ru - Alisa Nikoulina
AnPress-AT-mail.admiral.ru - Alexander Maishev


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