The Russian police raided the offices of a British organisation that supports journalists in conflict zones on Wednesday as part of a probe into alleged financial irregularities.
The police searched the Institute of War and Peace Reporting's (IWRP) office in Vladikavkaz in Russia's volatile North Caucasus region before confiscating two computers and documents, Tony Borden, the group's executive director said in a statement, acording to a Reuters report.
"We are shocked and surprised by this development and we give our full support to our coordinator Valery Dzutsev, who has acted completely honestly within Russian law," Borden said in a statement emailed to Reuters.
Two police officers searched the office for over an hour in the early afternoon and took two computers, containing IWPR’s reporting materials and media-related projects, and all office documents — including sensitive staff-and source-related information — and a list of IWPR seminar participants, Dzutsev told the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
Police told Dzutsev they were seizing the documents and equipment in connection with an investigation of alleged tax evasion and would return the documents and equipment once they have completed the investigation. Wednesday’s search comes on the heels of a criminal case opened against IWPR for alleged tax evasion at the end of January, but the organization denies the charges. The North Ossetian police investigator leading the case, Aslan Torchinov, told the Moscow Times that he had no comment on the case.
Under President Vladimir Putin, Russia has tightened rules for nongovernmental organisations. Top Russian officials say NGOs have been used by foreign spies as cover.
“We are outraged by the authorities’ harassment and legal action against our colleagues at IWPR and call on Russian authorities to dismiss their criminal case, return all office equipment and documents, and allow IWPR to continue their work without further interference,” CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon said. “IWPR is an important source of information in a region where independent journalists routinely face violence, imprisonment, and official persecution.”
IWPR is a nongovernmental organisation which seeks to support objective journalism in some of the world's most hostile regions, from Iraq to the Caucasus and Afghanistan. IWPR has trained journalists in the Caucasus since the late 1990s. Its Vladikavkaz office opened in 2002, and Dzutsev has headed it since then. It is now trying to re-register with authorities as required by the NGO law.
Dzutsev told Reuters separately by telephone that the authorities had opened a criminal case against him for tax evasion although he had already paid back taxes and a fine. "I consider myself innocent," he said. "It seems to me that they simply want to find something against me. Our organisation is practically the only organisation of its kind in the North Caucasus that seeks to foster independent journalism which is often not welcomed by certain people."
Dzutsev made his name reporting on the 2004 Beslan school siege, where more than 330 people died, many in a chaotic Russian rescue operation, Borden said.
Local journalists told CPJ the charges are in retaliation for IWPR’s reporting in the region. The most recent articles IWPR in Vladikavkaz published covered the new appointment of Ramzan Kadyrov as acting president of Chechnya and abuse of Chechen inmates in Russian prisons. Chechnya has been a topic of high sensitivity for the Kremlin, which has recently eliminated critical and independent information sources covering corruption, human rights abuses, and other socio-political issues in the volatile region. In January, the Russian Supreme Court liquidated the Nizhny Novgorod-based nongovernmental group Russian-Chechen Friendship Society and its information center, which published the monthly independent newspaper Pravo-Zashchita (Rights Defense).
The IWPR has previously encountered problems in Russia. British journalist Thomas de Waal, who heads the IWPR's Caucasus operations, was refused a visa to Russia last year and has still not received the permit. Last November, the police investigated Dzutsev for alleged illegal business activities; after failing to prove any wrongdoing, they dropped the case.
