Nizhni Novgorod Regional Court to decide whether the monograph "International Tribunal for Chechnya" is extremist

On December 6, the Dzerzhinsk City Court of the Nizhni Novgorod Region will consider the presentation of the City Prosecutor on recognition of the monograph named "International Tribunal for Chechnya" as an extremist material. Stanislav Dmitrievskiy, a local rights defender and the editor of the edition, has been summoned to the session as an interested person.

The two-volume work "International Tribunal for Chechnya: legal prospects of bringing to individual criminal responsibility the suspects of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the course of armed conflict in the Chechen Republic" was presented in Moscow in 2009. Its authors analyze the crimes committed in the course of the armed conflict in Chechnya.

According to Dmitrievskiy, he learned about the upcoming court session from the summon he received on November 28 from the hands of a police inspector. However, he was not given the prosecutor's presentation; therefore, he is unaware of the grounds, on which the Prosecutor's Office had concluded on the extremist character of the monograph. This is stated in the message of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" received by the editorial board of the "Caucasian Knot".

The HRC "Memorial" believes that the checks of the book were absurd, since the book is based on the analysis of the events of the Second Chechen War from the legal viewpoint, while the study was based on decisions of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR).