17 June 2004 01:25
Russia: The state they`re in
The tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky is not the average defenceless victim of alleged judicial abuse in Russia, yet
however high-powered his legal team may be, and whatever the strength of the fraud and tax evasion charges levelled in a
Moscow court against him yesterday, it is still a worrying affair. As Human Rights Watch - though rightly devoting more
attention to other abuses, particularly in Chechnya - has commented, the Khodorkovsky case illustrates "one of
Russia's most serious human rights problems: the willingness of the authorities to selectively use laws against
specific individuals for political purposes".
Mr Khodorkovsky laid the foundation for his now tottering oil group Yukos during the great financial bonanza of the
mid-1990s when the ambitious and the ruthless carved out profitable empires from the enforced privatisation of state
assets. He and a close associate allegedly failed to make investments which they had promised in a chemical company
acquired from the state, and then defied court orders to return the share certificates. They are also accused of more
recently evading millions in corporate taxes at Yukos. Mr Khodorkovsky's own lawyers do not deny that there may be
questions to answer but, as quoted yesterday in the Wall Street Journal, say that the offences of which he was accused
were "standard business practice" in the 1990s and should be dealt with in a civil rather than criminal court.
It is widely assumed that his real crime has been to cross Vladimir Putin by refusing to keep out of politics - unlike
other more prudent tycoons - after Russia's president came to power in 2000.
Mr Putin has routinely denied any involvement, but his muscular approach to human rights gives no grounds for
confidence. In his state of the nation address at the end of May, he rejected the charge of authoritarianism, claiming
his aim was to "strengthen our statehood". But he then went on to attack Russian-based humanitarian
organisations which "serve dubious group and commercial interests": Mr Khodorkovsky, like the media magnate
Boris Berezovsky, who now has refugee status in Britain, used some profits to finance philanthropic work.
Meanwhile abuses continue unchecked in Chechnya where an average of at least one person is believed to disappear
every day, and espionage charges are apparently being used to intimidate academics and journalists doing research on
sensitive issues. Most Russians approve of Mr Putin's emphasis on stability and the strong state, but they may come
to regret it.
[The Guardian] |
RUSSIA IN FACTS
