Source: HRO.org (info), 19/10/11
 * * * The October district court in Arkhangelsk has begun hearing the criminal case against the historian Mikhail Suprun and the former head of the Information Centre of the region’s police department, Aleksandr Dudarev. Mikhail Suprun has been charged with the unlawful gathering and dissemination of information that violates personal and family privacy. Aleksandr Dudarev has been charged with exceeding his official powers. The historian could be sentenced to two years in prison; the former police officer could get a four-year term. The investigation has taken the view that what the historian has done in creating a database about those ethnic Germans who were deported to Arkhangelsk region, and passing this database to the Red Cross of the Federal Republic of Germany without their consent, is a crime. As Ivan Pavlov, Mikhail Suprun’s legal counsel, has said, the database contains no information about adoptions or illnesses – only data about the reasons for the deportation (apart from ethnic identification, and sometimes an indication of service in the Nazi armed forces or police) and temporary residence addresses. Under the law “On Personal Data” it is not an offence to make public information about a person’s criminal record. The problem lies in the vagueness of the concept of privacy in Russian law and its arbitrary interpretation. On these grounds it would be possible to classify as secret the database of the Ministry of Defence about those who died in the Second World War. This database also includes information about the places of residence of people killed, and information about their families. The trial of Mikhail Suprun and Aleksandr Dudarev is a dangerous signal for researchers and for the staff and administrators of archives. This case is a threat to those who are working on developing Books of Memory about repressed ethnic groups and to those archivists who maintain these files from the tragic years of our history. After charges were brought against Mikhail Suprun and Aleksandr Dudarev in September 2009, the heads of many regional police department information centres have refused to provide Memorial with information about people deported in the years 1920-1950, who numbered from 6,4 million to 7 million. In particular, in Magadan historian Ivan Dzhukh has been denied access to the files of repressed ethnic Greeks. This fear also has its effect on the staff of state archives who, on artificial pretexts, seek to refuse to give access to personal files, and even where this concerns the presentation of awards. In the words of Arseny Roginsky, chair of the board of the International Memorial Society, this puts at risk the full rehabilitation of the peasants who suffered from collectivisation, and the repressed ethnic groups. Those who initiated the criminal case against Suprun and Dudarev are threatening not only historians, they are trying to intimidate our historical memory and hinder our understanding of the tragedies of the past. Source: ‘Ot redaktsii: FSB protiv istorii,’ Vedomosti, 19 October 2011 |
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