The basic fact that #human rights# activists in #Russia have a very difficult stand does not come as a surprise. That their lawyers are also the target of all kinds of attacks and intimidations, is the simple consequence. Still, to enter into the details and to follow them in their daily life, their hopes and doubts, is a chance offered by Masha Novikova’s (*Moscow, 1956) new documentary Russia vs. Lawyers, presented in Warsaw’s #Watch Docs# Human Right International Film Festival.
Permanent erosion
In today’s Russian Federation, lawyers are confronted with the State’s permanent erosion of all kinds of democratic mechanisms. Simply participating in a protest march can be a reason for getting arrested. Possessing #anarchist leaflets or sympathising with #LGBT movements, even in a sublime form of artwork, can also be punished with severe prison sentences. Only a few days ago, all LGBT activities were banned for being «extremist.»
The vocabulary of defamation applied to all kinds of oppositions, or merely differences, is quite small. Democratic rights defenders and minority representatives are stigmatised beside «extremists» as «terrorists,» «enemies of the state,» «manipulators directed from foreign countries,» or just «spies.»
But who are these lawyers, who despite the evident degradation and criminalisation of any form of resistance, are still holding up the idea of a possible justice, lawyers who are confronted with bored prosecutors reading their #WhatsApp messages during their pleadings, or young women heavy with make up and painted fingernails looking at them as if they were aliens?
The vocabulary of defamation applied to all kinds of oppositions, or merely differences, is quite small.
Judged by History
One of them is Karinna Moskalenko. Besides her engagement in human rights, she takes care of dozens of poverty-stricken clients who can’t pay for her services. Masha Novikova follows her in her private life, working in her small home office, surrounded by her two adopted children. Her belief in justice is so incredible that she imagines #Putin will one day be the accused in a court. Her activities also reach out to the European Court of Human Rights, an organisation that, according to Mikhail Benyash, another prominent figure of Novikova’s portraits, is taking action too slowly and therefore can’t be effective.
Benyash himself is accused of having bitten a police officer against all proven evidence. Ten of his colleagues have defended him in court, with 400 having signed a letter. What indeed we can watch is the reality of police officers breaking into his apartment without showing a search warrant. On the observation camera, Benyash recognizes one of them, someone he had already questioned in court.
Masha Novikova takes her camera to many different parts of Russia. The cinematography of Aleandra Ivanova often works effectively with close-ups, creating an atmosphere without much breathing space. Also, Maria Uhrikh’s quite restricted soundtrack generates an ambiance of tension and danger in the public space. She completely abstains from musical accomplishment.
The situation for all victims is the same. They are captured in a quite effective time prison, beginning long before the physical one. The accused must follow up with hearing after hearing, tortured by endless uncertainty. Their cases may never end. No verdict has been expressed over the years. In the court, witnesses are regularly made uncomfortable by being interrupted by the prosecutor. Their statement, as with those of the accused, is sometimes even falsified when there is an absence of a representative lawyer.
«We have no justice closer than Strasbourg,» one of the lawyers reclaimed. But if Russia leaves the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, «there will be only the Soviet Union and the Gulag.»
In one of his cases, Benyash defended national guards who refused to step inside #Ukraine, reclaiming their job only to secure Russian territory. They will be dismissed and soon after deported as soldiers to Ukraine without their consent. Reclaiming their reintegration into the National Guard corps, Benyash was classified as a «foreign agent.»
Despite his knowledge that expressing an opinion against Russian troops in Ukraine is punished by an administrative fine, and evoking what Russian troops are doing in Ukraine carries a prison sentence, he has the courage to proclaim on the podium of the All-Russian Conference of Attorneys the immediate end to the war in Ukraine on February 2nd, 2022. Most of the Attorneys present just consider him a provocateur. His answer: «History will judge us, colleagues.»
Consequences
Many lawyers have already left the country. Benyash’s conviction instead is, even if lawyers know beforehand that they will lose the legal way, they should still proceed because as long as they don’t leave, there is still hope: «If I go to jail, I go to jail. But at least I’ll have peace of mind.»
On 17 February 2023, the Chamber of Lawyers disbarred Mikhail Benyash’s lawyer status. Russia accused the European Court of Human Rights of discrediting the Russian Army. #Alexei Navalny# refused to ask for clemency, even if there is a button on Putin’s web page just for lancing those requests.
Finally, we shouldn’t forget that the downgrading of human rights and the systematic destruction of freedom-requesting movements in Russia were precisely predicted in a 1997 letter to #Bill Clinton# as the consequence of NATO’s East-Expansion, signed by military and CIA high-ranging specialists, who called the expansion «a political error with historical dimensions.»
