(CPJ/IFEX) – CPJ is greatly troubled by the continuing criminal prosecution and imprisonment of military journalist Grigory Pasko, whose closed military trial in Vladivostok on charges of high treason and revealing state secrets is scheduled to resume on 10 June 1999. A guilty verdict in the trial could result in his imprisonment for up to […]
(CPJ/IFEX) – CPJ is greatly troubled by the continuing criminal prosecution
and imprisonment of military journalist Grigory Pasko, whose closed military
trial in Vladivostok on charges of high treason and revealing state secrets
is scheduled to resume on 10 June 1999. A guilty verdict in the trial could
result in his imprisonment for up to twenty years.
**Updates IFEX alerts of 4 June, 11 March and 17 February 1999, 14 October,
21 May and 11 May 1998**
Pasko, a Russian naval captain and military journalist, has been held in
solitary confinement in a Vladivostok prison since his trial began in
October 1998. The 37-year-old Pasko is accused of divulging classified
materials in a series of reports in Russian and Japanese media on the
environmental damage caused by nuclear waste from Russia’s decaying nuclear
submarine fleet in the Far East. His reports showing the Pacific Fleet
illicitly dumping radioactive waste into the Sea of Japan appeared on
Japan’s NHK television station and in the Japanese daily “Asahi Shimbun”.
Pasko’s revelations were also published in “Boyevaya Vakhta”, the military
newspaper where he worked, after they were cleared by military censors.
Officers from Russia’s military counter-intelligence service arrested Pasko
at Vladivostok airport in November 1997 after he returned from a trip to
Japan. Prosecutors claim his contacts in the Japanese media were spies.
Federal Security Bureau agents searched his apartment and confiscated
documents he had gathered for his ongoing investigation, as well as
cassettes, books and his computer. Although officials have admitted that
none of the confiscated documents were classified, they claim the series of
reports as a whole, published and aired over a three-year period, posed a
threat to Russia’s national security. The FSB has classified the case a
state secret, making it difficult for Pasko’s attorneys to mount a proper
legal defense.
Recommended Action
Send appeals to the chief justice of the Pacific Fleet Military Tribunal:
practicing his profession
documents for use in his journalistic investigations for Russian and foreign
news media, clearly violates his right “to seek and impart information and
ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers,” as expressed in the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
transparent
attempt by the Russian military and security establishment to use the
country’s laws guarding state secrets to silence criticism
effect on investigative journalism in Russia and severely damage press
freedom
promptly release him
Appeals To
The Honorable Justice Sergei Mikhailovich Volkov
Chief Justice of the Pacific Fleet Military Tribunal
Vladivostok, Russia
Fax: +7 4232 26 06 44
Please copy appeals to the source if possible.
