TV Witch Hunt Drives Human Rights Activist Out of Russia
A human rights activist from a small town in the Urals has
fled to Paris seeking asylum after she was featured in a damning
documentary on state TV, in the latest in a series of apparent witch
hunts that have proliferated amid deteriorating relations between Russia
and the West.
Nadezhda Kutepova, who had fought for the rights of the
residents of a small closed town in the Chelyabinsk region where
a nuclear accident occurred several decades ago, fled in complete
secrecy, fearing that TV report accusing her of espionage was just
a step away from formal prosecution.
Kutepova founded an NGO in the late '90s called Planeta
Nadezhd (Planet of Hopes) in the town of Ozyorsk, which being built
around the Mayak nuclear plant is classified as a strategic site and is
accordingly closed to visitors.
Mayak makes components for nuclear weapons as well as storing
and converting spent nuclear fuel. In 1957, one of the storage
facilities exploded, and radioactive materials poisoned the area around
it, including the River Techa. Kutepova fought for people to get
the medical treatment and benefits they were entitled to for conditions
connected to the accident.
Her NGO was declared a "foreign agent" in April under a law that
labels NGOs involved in politics and accepting foreign funding as such.
Her case might have remained a local issue, but state-owned Rossia TV
channel immediately threw Kutepova into the national spotlight — in a
role of a sinister agent involved in industrial espionage and plotting
against the country's nuclear industry.
Data: 15.10.2015
Fonte: www.themoscowtimes.com
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