Tactics and tools for the protection
of Human Rights Defenders

This report is the result of a mission sent to Saint-Petersburg in June 2005, in the context of an increasing climate of hostility against human rights defenders, characterised by the multiplication, over the past two years, of physical attacks against them - including assassinations - and by numerous assaults on associations’ offices. This hostile atmosphere goes hand in hand with a growth in xenophobia, racism and anti-Semitism in Russia directed at foreigners and minorities, and, de facto, at the defenders of their rights.

This phenomenon, prevalent in Saint-Petersburg, not only comes from extremist groups but is also present within public administration departments, political and judicial institutions. As a consequence, the mission aimed at analysing the public response to these attacks, by making light upon the functioning of the law enforcement and administrative bodies, in order to understand the impunity enjoyed by the aggressors of human rights defenders. Indeed, the refusal to investigate into these violations often gives full permission to their authors. Likewise, the tendency to liken these offences against defenders to common law crimes, the judges’ timorousness, as well as the absence of protection for witnesses and experts contribute to this climate of impunity., In addition, this lack of protection leads the latter, in this context, to refuse to testify.