Denisova: I was deprived of opportunities to be engaged in human rights activities

Anastasia Denisova, a human rights defender from Krasnodar and head of public organization "ETnIKA", whose criminal case was delivered from the court to the prosecutor's office for elimination of drawbacks, believes that the organizers of her criminal and judicial prosecution have hit their true target - deprived her of opportunities to work properly.

"Now I practically work for self-defence and have no time to do what my organization usually is engaged in - monitoring xenophobia in the territory, organizing training sessions and holding public actions," she said. Besides, till the end of the litigation she is under a recognizance not to leave.

Let us remind you that the prosecutor's office of the Lenin District of Krasnodar had accused Anastasia of using counterfeit software in the computers found in the office that she was renting.

However, as she believes, the case fabricated against her had the aim to deprive her, for the time being or forever, of the opportunity to be engaged in her public and human rights work. She is also afraid of restart of litigation against her with accusatory inclination.

In the meantime, the journalists and human rights activists, trying to understand the essence of counterfeit problems, cannot get any comments of the accusers and victims; the latter being the Microsoft representatives in Russia.

Thus, Dmitri Koshuba, head of the Limited Liability Company (LLC) "Spectrum Law Firm", who had lodged claim against Denisova, explained only that "there was information about a copyright violation," which "proved to be true after the check." He failed to name the source of the information.

Vladimir Ivuts, Director of the LLC "Respect" - representative of the Microsoft in the SFD (Southern Federal District of Russia), - listened to the questions by telephone and answered that he was driving along a mountain serpentine road and could not speak, offering to address him with a letter.

Alexander Strakh, head of the law division of Microsoft-Russia, also offered to make a written request. "Write to the press service - this is our procedure," he said to the call of the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

Meanwhile earlier he had been already repeatedly addressed in writing by activists of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial", "Transparency Int." and other non-commercial organizations. However, apart from promises to consider their letters, no reaction followed.

A similar request was sent by human rights activists to Seattle, to the US-based Microsoft office. No answer from there so far; and it is not clear yet whether the top managers and respective subdivisions of the world-famous computer company know that their Russian representative office is engaged in litigation against Denisova.