Alternative France-Russia Year to address civil society’s omission from official event

The historic links between France and Russia are part of a long tradition of exchanges and mutual fascination. Our two countries maintain intense cultural, economic and strategic relations that have had their ups and downs and, of late, a vigorous revival. The most recent developments point clearly to a rapprochement between the two states, one that bears the regrettable mark of Realpolitik (sale of Mistral-type warships, industrial and financial contracts and the development of stronger links between Total, EDF and GDF-Suez on the one hand and Gazprom on the other). The lack of the rule of law in Russia does not trouble France’s biggest corporations. To celebrate their friendship and cultural closeness, France and Russia are paying tribute to each other in 2010 in 12 months of exchanges called the France-Russia Year. Prestigious art exhibitions, conferences, concerts and theatre presentations will offer French and Russians a chance to sample the pleasures of each other’s culture. Such an initiative is of a kind that cannot be criticised. Except that an essential dimension has been completely eclipsed by this dazzling event. The missing dimension is civil society. It has not been invited to the party. It is not represented, or only in a very limited manner. And in so doing, Russian reality that has been stripped of one of its most vibrant, most persistent and most humanistic dimensions. We, the representatives of several human rights organisations, believe you cannot just ignore certain realities, no matter how disturbing they may be. Russia, like every nation, is not limited to its government officials, its cultural monuments and its uniform spokesmen. For this reason, to render Russia in all its complexity, to recognise its various voices and its various faces, which are contradictory, sometime controversial and often painful, we have joined together to offer an “Alternative” France-Russia Year to all those who would like to know Russia and not just celebrate it. This initiative is motivated by a desire not to abandon this event to the official discourse. We are all in contact with Russian citizens every day. We work with them and we defend them. And we are all confronted by the most brutal aspects of what Russian reality can offer. Our goal is to shed light on Russia’s hidden face, to tackle questions that are crucial for its future, and Europe’s future and to offer the possibility of talking to other protagonists. Throughout the year, this Alternative event will offer the possible of meeting and paying tribute to political prisoners, human rights activists and independent thinkers and writers with the aim of fostering an interest in this other Russia, for nurturing real solidarity between French and Russian citizens. Russia’s human rights activists need us. When Memorial’s representatives received the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize on 16 December, they appealed to the European Union to come to their aid. A few weeks later, one of their most respected spokespersons, Lyudmila Alexeyeva, was arrested! We want this appeal to be heard because there are fewer and fewer people who can issue it. In this respect, 2009 was one of the grimmest years. Many of those struggling for a Russia with more justice, a Russia more respectful of human rights, lost their lives last year. Stanislav Markelov (a lawyer), Anastasia Baburova (a Novaya Gazeta journalist, one of five journalists murdered in 2009), Natalia Estemirova (Memorial’s representative in Grozny), Zarema Sadulaeva (of the NGO Spasem Pokolenye - Save the Generation) and her husband Alik Djibralov, Sergei Magnitsky (a Hermitage Fund lawyer, who died in detention for lack of appropriate medical attention) and Maksharip Aushev (an Ingush opposition leader) are no longer around to speak out about the dramatic deterioration in human rights over the past six years in their country. There were also attempts to murder journalists such as Mikhail Beketov, who has been left maimed. Others have been or continue to be victims of an authoritarian regime: Alexander Podrabinek, a journalist forced into hiding for criticising the rampant neo-Stalinism; Oleg Orlov, the head of Memorial, who is the target of a criminal prosecution brought by Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov; Yuri Samodurov, the former head of the Sakharov Centre, and Andrei Yerofeyev, the former curator of the Tretyakov Gallery, who are being tried for organising an exhibition of censored art works; and Alexei Sokolov, a human rights activist who has been held for more than eight months for combating torture in detention centres. Mikhail Khodorkovsky is meanwhile still in prison and is facing the possibility of an additional 20-year sentence. Khodorkovsky’s case is far from an isolated one. Russia now has several dozen political prisoners who are recognised as such by Russian and western NGOs. Whether journalists, lawyers, members of human rights NGOs, heads of major corporations or activists calling for a freer civil society and a democracy with checks and balances, all are constantly subjected to considerable pressure and are sometimes threatened with death or imprisonment. The Russian population in its entirety is immersed in ubiquitous violence. The violence is growing in some regions of the country such as the republics of the Caucasus, where atrocities are frequent and cannot be blamed solely on the rebels operating there. This unbearable level of violence is often accompanied an appalling degree of impunity. No one has been arrested and punished for any of the murders of journalists or human rights activists in Russia in recent years! Our resources obviously cannot be compared with those of the official France-Russia Year. But our determination matches our conviction that nothing is inevitable, than Russia is not doomed to authoritarianism, that another Russia is already gestating and is waiting to be born, and that the architects of this change must be supported. The Alternative France-Russia Year is for those who share our interest in this other Russia, The Alternative France-Russia Year collective: - ACAT-France (Christian Action for the Abolition of Torture) - Amnesty International France - Maison d'Europe et d'Orient - Reporters Without Borders With the support of the Russian NGOs: Sakharov Centre, Memorial, Glasnost Defence Foundation and Citizen Aid.