Bellona will take TV-channel Petersburg to court. The program “Vne Zakona” (Beyond the Law) has so far broadcast four programs under the vignette “Tracing Bellona”, aimed at shedding a bad light onto Nikitin and Bellona, and at influencing the City Court’s decision. “Vne Zakona” presents a series of allusions and lies disguised as a ‘documentary’. It suggests that Bellona is a spy organisation with an ‘ecological cover’.

There is no doubt that the Russian Security Police, the FSB, was the inspirer of the program. The head of the information department of this TV channel, V. Lukin, is the former head of the press department of the St. Petersburg FSB. Lukin became infamous for writing a book where, roughly speaking, he describes how the ‘bad’ Jewish chekists (KGB officers) were murdering the ‘good’ Russian chekists during the Stalin reprisals.

Another interesting point is the fact that the program several times captured video shots of documents from the secret Nikitin case files. For instance, in yesterday’s program, they filmed Nikitin’s permission to enter the naval academy in St. Petersburg, where Nikitin read the book on accidents on nuclear submarines.

In addition, according to the ‘journalistic investigation’ made by TV-Petersburg, Bellona has paid the people that arranged a rally in support of Nikitin outside the St. Petersburg City Court. To top it all, Bellona has also paid many of the local journalists in St. Petersburg, who write favourably of Nikitin. The ‘suspected’ journalists were shown in close-ups in the program.

“Lies and only lies,” says Frederic Hauge, President of Bellona, commenting on the “Tracing Bellona” series. “They started their first program by claiming that Bellona’s protest against nuclear testing at Novaya Zemlya in the Arctic back in 1990 was carried out on behalf of the U.S. Navy. In yesterday’s program they said that Bellona has paid the people at the demonstration outside the City Court and many of the local journalists in St. Petersburg. This is absurd,” says Hauge.

“There are so many lies in this program, that it prompts us to file a suit against them,” says Hauge.

The fifth program in the series is already announced for later this week.