ECtHR to consider photojournalist's complaint against his search at Abkhazian-Russian border

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has sent questions to the Russian government on the case of the journalist and photo correspondent Yuri Ivaschenko, whose correspondence in 2009 was read and copied by Russian customs officers on his return from Abkhazia.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that the incident on the border happened on August 27, 2009, when Yuri Ivaschenko was on his way back from Abkhazia together with Anastasia Denisova, an employee of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" for the Krasnodar Territory. Ivaschenko and Denisova spoke about the pressure on them exerted by customs officials and border guards. They were subjected to searches and interrogations, while information from the laptop of the photojournalist was copied by power agents in some closed premise of the customs checkpoint.

"The ECtHR has asked the Russian government to answer, whether in Ivaschenko's case there was any interference with the right to respect for his private life and correspondence; and how the interference with the freedom of expression was justified," says the statement of the human rights association named "Agora".

Mr Ivaschenko asks the ECtHR to recognize Russia guilty of violating Articles 8 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR) (the right to respect for one's private and family life and the freedom of self-expression), and to adjudge a fair compensation to him.

"The voluntary search of Ivaschenko for 6 hours and withdrawal of his personal information are, no doubt, interferences with his private and professional life. We insist on our demands; and we are satisfied that within a year our complaint has been communicated," the edition named "Openinform" quotes the lawyer Marina Dubrovina as saying.

On January 25, 2010, the Prikubansky District Court of Krasnodar upheld the actions of the Sochi customs officers, who examined Yuri Ivaschenko's personal ICQ correspondence, textual files and photos stored in his laptop, when he crossed the Abkhazian-Russia border. Then, they installed some special software and copied 26 gigabytes of information from the laptop to specially prepared DVDs, the "Gazeta.ru" writes.