Russia 090508 Basic Political Developments

Moscow bans gay rights parade on Eurovision day

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE54654020090507
Thu May 7, 2009 12:30pm EDT

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Moscow has banned a gay parade planned to coincide with its hosting of the Eurovision Song Contest because it will "destroy morals" in the capital, a spokesman for the city's mayor said Thursday.

Gay rights activists have staged small unsanctioned parades in Moscow without government approval over the past few years. But they have faced arrests and severe beatings by anti-gay and neo-fascist groups.

"The Moscow government is saying: Moscow has never had gay parades and it never will," said Mayor Yuri Luzhkov's spokesman, Sergei Tsoi. "Not only do they destroy morals within our society, but they consciously provoke disorder which threatens the lives of Muscovites and visitors."

Parade organizer and prominent gay rights activist Nikolai Alekseyev said on his website www.gayrussia.ru that the event would take place anyway.

"This is our right and it is guaranteed by the constitution. No official, including the Moscow mayor, has the right to violate it," Alekseyev said.

But Luzhkov's spokesman said any attempt to hold an unsanctioned gay parade would be "toughly stopped by law enforcement agencies in accordance with the law."

Luzhkov, who has been mayor of Moscow since 1992, once said gay parades were "a satanic act"

Russia did not decriminalize gay sex until 1993, two years after the Soviet Union's collapse, and intolerance is widespread.

Moscow has no gay-friendly district and the homosexual scene is still largely underground. Public displays of affection between same-sex couples are rare.

The gay parade, scheduled for May 16, was meant to coincide with Moscow's hosting of the Eurovision Song Contest. Activists had asked that competitors back homosexual rights on stage.

A Swiss-based Eurovision spokesman, currently in Moscow, declined to comment on the banning of the parade but said: "It's not a secret that we have a large gay audience and we respect everyone's backgrounds."

(Reporting by Aydar Buribayev and Amie Ferris-Rotman, editing by Mark Trevelyan)

Moscow city authorities will not allow gay parade - mayor's spokesman

http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=6002

Moscow, May 7, Interfax - The Moscow city authorities will not allow a gay parade in the city, Sergey Tsoy, a spokesman for the Moscow mayor, told journalists on Thursday.

"Members of the gay movement are threatening to hold their action on May 16 regardless of whether they get permission or not and without reckoning with the opinion of a community majority. The Moscow government is declaring that no gay parades have been and will be held in Moscow," Tsoy said.

The organizers of gay parades are seeking "not only to destroy moral pillars of our society but also deliberately provoke disorder, which would threaten the lives and security of Muscovites and guests of the city," he said.

"Such an action would endanger above all those who would want to take part in it. All this is absolutely unacceptable," Tsoy said.

"This is not only the Moscow government's position. We have been firmly warned about this by members of all religious denominations, primarily the Russian Orthodox Church, and also the leaders of youth and veteran organizations and ethnic-cultural groups," he said.

"Law enforcement bodies will strictly curb any attempts to hold unsanctioned actions in line with the law," Tsoy said.
New Moscow Police Chief

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/1010/42/376959.htm


Former St. Petersburg police chief Mikhail Vanichkin could be tapped to take over as head of the Moscow police, an Interior Ministry source told the Rosbalt news agency.

Vanichkin, chief of St. Petersburg police from 2002 to 2006 and currently an aide to Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev, is "the most appropriate candidate for the post," the source said, Rosbalt reported Wednesday evening.

A new Moscow police chief could be appointed at the end of the month, Interfax reported in April.

Former Moscow police chief Vladimir Pronin was fired by President Dmitry Medvedev after an armed rampage last month by a Moscow police officer, who killed three people at a local supermarket. (MT)

Russian Supreme Court bans Islamic organization Tablighi Jamaat

http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=6004

Moscow, May 7, Interfax - The Russian Supreme Court has recognized the international religious organization Tablighi Jamaat as extremist and banned its activity in the Russian territory, thus granting the prosecutor general's motion, Prosecutor General's Office spokesperson Marina Gridneva told Interfax.

According to the media, Tablighi Jamaat is considered a radical Islamic group and is sometimes described as "an invisible legion of Jihad."

U.S. Brothers Found Guilty of Espionage

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/600/42/376971.htm
08 May 2009

By Nikolaus von Twickel / The Moscow Times

A Moscow court has convicted an American employed at oil firm TNK-BP and his brother of spying on Gazprom and handed them suspended sentences, a court spokeswoman said Thursday.

Ilya Zaslavsky and his brother Alexander received one-year suspended sentences and two years probation after being convicted of industrial espionage Thursday at the Tverskoi District Court, court spokeswoman Alexandra Berezina told The Moscow Times.

Berezina declined to give further details because the trial of the two brothers was closed to the public.

The charges against the Zaslavsky brothers emerged last year during a high-profile power struggle between the Russian and British owners of TNK-BP.

Unidentified officials with the Federal Security Service, or FSB, said the brothers, who also have Russian citizenship, had collected classified information about state energy giant Gazprom, Interfax reported Thursday.

The official said the FSB had been tipped off by an employee of a domestic energy firm who claimed that the brothers had tried to buy company secrets from him.

"The court found that the evidence provided by the FSB about Ilya and Alexander Zaslavsky's criminal behavior fully confirmed their guilt," the official said.

The brothers were arrested in March last year as TNK-BP's owners fought over their 50-50 ownership structure. About the same time, the company came under scrutiny from law enforcement agencies -- a development that some observers said suggested that one side was playing dirty by unfairly enlisting state assistance.

But other observers linked the law enforcement scrutiny to a long-running dispute between Gazprom and TNK-BP over control of TNK-BP's flagship Kovykta gas field, saying Gazprom was trying to take over TNK-BP as well.

At the time of his arrest, Ilya Zaslavsky, then 29, worked as a manager in TNK-BP's international affairs office. A source in the company said Thursday that he was still employed at TNK-BP, Reuters reported.

Calls and e-mails to the firm's press office went unanswered Thursday.

A Gazprom spokeswoman said the company would not comment on the case.

Reached by telephone Thursday, Ilya Zaslavsky declined to comment on the verdict or identify his lawyers.

Alexander Zaslavsky, who is three years older than his brother, worked as an independent energy consultant and headed the British Alumni Club, a graduate network set up by the British Council.

A council spokesman on Thursday confirmed that Alexander Zaslavsky is president of the alumni club but said he had never worked for the British Council.

"Alexander Zaslavsky is not an employee of the British Council and has never worked for us in any capacity," the spokesman said in e-mailed comments. He added that the British Alumni Club was a self-governing organization and that Zaslavsky has not participated in club activities since March 2008.

The British Council at the time had been forced to close most of its offices in Russia because of a dispute that the Foreign Ministry has linked to British demands that State Duma Deputy Andrei Lugovoi be extradited to face murder charges in the poisoning death of former security services officer Alexander Litvinenko.

The Zaslavsky brothers both graduated from Oxford University, and Ilya still heads the Moscow Oxford Society, according to the organization's web site.