Human rights defender Stanislav Dmitrievsky, a regular organizer of Strategy-31 demonstrations in Nizhny Novgorod, has been summoned to the Police Department for Combating Extremism (Centre E) to be questioned about the dissemination of extremist materials.

Novaya gazeta reports that, in the opinion of the law enforcement agency, a monograph published two years ago and edited by Stanislav Dmitrievsky, An International Tribunal for Chechnya. Legal Perspectives for Prosecuting Persons Suspected of Committing War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity, contains extremist statements.

According to Grani.ru, Stanislav Dmitrievsky refused to answer questions put by the police. Earlier in Moscow Natalia Yakoleva, director of the Independent Press Centre, had been questioned on the same grounds. Karinna Moskalenko, of the Centre for International Protection, who reviewed the monograph before it was published, refused to answer questions on the grounds that she is Stanislav Dmitrievsky’s lawyer and has no right to give evidence on circumstances connected with her client’s case.

On 15 July 2009 the presentation of An International Tribunal for Chechnya took place at the Independent Press Centre in Moscow. On the same day, Igor Kalyapin, director of the Nizhny Novgorod Committee Against Torture, transported part of the print run from Moscow to Nizhny Novgorod in his car. As he approached the city of Nizhny Novgorod, he was stopped by traffic police and, during the inspection of his vehicle, 12 copies of the two-volume edition of the publication were found in the car boot. These copies were subsequently confiscated by an officer from Centre E. The confiscation took place on the basis of an alleged violation of administrative law about which Igor Kaliapin knew nothing at all.

In 2007 Stanislav Dmitrievsky was given a two-year suspended sentence for inciting inter-ethnic hatred. He was convicted for publishing in the newspaper Pravo-zaschchita appeals by Chechen separatist leaders that called for a peaceful resolution of the conflict in Chechnya. Earlier, Stanlislav Dmitrievsky had headed the Society for Russian and Chechen Friendship, an NGO closed down by a Nizhny Novgorod court in October 2006. In January 2007 the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation upheld this decision.