Amnesty’s man in Moscow

"Sergei Nikitin, director of Amnesty’s newly opened Resource Center in Moscow, has had a busy start."

A wintry round trip in Russia to get to know Amnesty’s groups in the world’s largest country. Cooperating with painters and other artists on the production of posters and postcards for the international day of torture victims. – The action went very well in Tomsk, comments Sergei. – Their action was even covered by the local TV-station.
In September Sergei went ahead of a small Amnesty delegation to the Turkmenistan embassy in Moscow for a symbolic handover of the chapter the organization thinks is missing in the Rukhnama, the Turkmen president’s self-celebratory book. The chapter deals with the poor conditions for human rights in the former Soviet republic. This event also received broad media attention.
October was a hectic month, with press conferences both in Moscow and in Murmansk on Amnesty’s Rough Justice-report about the shortcomings of the Russian judicial system, a Speakers tour with the Russian and Hungarian Amnesty activist to Novosibirsk, Moscow, Saint Petersburg and Pjatigorsk, a Swiss Amnesty-bus touring several Russian cities… In addition to training seminars for Amnesty members on campaigning as well as human rights education at crisis centers for women.

An important tool
Less than a year ago Sergei, who previously has been working for the Quaker foundation in Russia, started his job at Amnesty’s Resource Center in the Russian capital. Here money raised through the Norwegian Telethon in 1999 is transformed into human rights activism. For Sergei there is no doubt: - The greatest challenge to human rights in Russia is the lack of respect for the human rights of the individual by the state. The coming generation has to learn their rights and act on them. An Amnesty center in Moscow is an important tool in this work. Amnesty has to show that individual actions to protect human rights do make a difference, as well as to oversee the state’s protection and promotion of human rights through legislation and use of power.
- Human rights must be respected irrespective of threats of terror, he says, with clear reference to the justification the Russian government gives for its brutal conduct in Chechnya.

Sergei Nikitin has the impression that most Russian non-governmental organizations are pleased with Amnesty’s presence in Russia. – We are not competing for funds, and Amnesty is an established and respected organization. Russian women’s organizations look forward to Amnesty’s forthcoming campaign on Violence against Women. They ask us to support their work, and think this in itself increases their influence, says Amnesty’s man in Moscow.

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