News
Publish date: January 1, 1998
News
MEDIA ADVISORY
RUSSIAN FEDERATION
St Petersburg City Court
Naberezhnaya Reki Fontanki, 16
10.30am, 20 October 1998
Amnesty International is sending an observer to the trial of Russia’shigh-profile human rights defender, Aleksandr Nikitin, which begins nextweek. Bill Bowring, a human rights lawyer and professor at EssexUniversity, will be an observer for the first week of the trial.
Aleksandr Nikitin faces up to 20 years in prison for what the Russianauthorities describe as an act of treason, and what AmnestyInternational and the international human rights movement callpeacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression.
On 30 June the case of Aleksandr Nikitin was finally referred to the StPetersburg City Court, after the St Petersburg Procurator confirmed thecharges brought by the Federal Security Service (FSB) against Nikitin.He is still charged with treason and exposing state secrets whileworking for the Bellona Foundation.
Aleksandr Nikitin was arrested by the FSB on 6 February 1996, afterwriting two chapters for a Bellona report on the risks of radioactivepollution from Russia’s Northern Fleet. Amnesty International adoptedhim as a prisoner of conscience. He was held in pre-trial detentionuntil 14 December 1996 when he was released. The charges against him,however, remained and he has been officially restricted to the citylimits of St Petersburg pending trial.
During a mission in May, the Amnesty International delegation held ameeting with FSB officials in Moscow, during which the organizationcontinued to urge that all charges against Aleksandr Nikitin be droppedand that the allegations of intimidation and harassment against him befully and impartially investigated.ENDS…/
Amnesty International, International Secretariat, 1 Easton Street,WC1X 8DJ, London, United Kingdom
Recent attacks on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant "mark the beginning of a new and gravely dangerous front of the war," the UN atomic agency's director general said last week.
After years of inaction, Germany is working on its Carbon Management Strategy to resolve how CCS can play a role in climate action in industry. At the end of February, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action published first key points and a proposal to amend the law Kohlenstoffdioxid Speicherungsgesetz (KSpG). Bellona Deutschland, who was actively involved in the previous stakeholder dialogue submitted a statement in the association hearing.
In the midst of a global discussion on whether natural gas should be used as a transitional fuel and whether emissions from its extraction, production, transport and use are significantly less than those from other fossil fuels, Russia has developed ambitious plans to increase its own production of liquified natural gas (LNG) in the Arctic – a region with 75% of proven gas reserves in Russia – to raise its share in the international gas trade.
In this news digest, we monitor events that impact the environment in the Russian Arctic. Our main focus lies in identifying the factors that contribute to pollution risks and climate change.