In their address to the Supreme Court the plaintiffs have also said that many RF courts have many times violated the right to defend one’s electoral rights in court. As a rule, plaints about laws violations by electoral commissions, media and individuals are not answered; there were many cases of refusals to open criminal cases about these violations.
The Supreme Court examination of this declaration began on November 15th and ended on December 16th 2004. During this time 19 court sessions were held. The court refused almost every petition of the plaintiffs: about calling over one hundred witnesses to court, about adding two hundred documents to the case, about requesting evidence from the CEC, the Ministry of Press and other State bodies and channels. Besides the Supreme Court did not examine more than 1% of the evidence presented by the plaintiffs during the court sessions. The Supreme Court has also simply refused to examine the question about the manipulation of elections on 57 thousand electoral districts, supposedly because this question is not in the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction, directly ignoring part 4 of article 75 of the Federal Law “About the principal guaranties of electoral rights and the rights for RF citizens to take part in a referendum”.
During the trial the lawyers have petitioned four times (on November 16th and 29th and two times on December 6th) to challenge the judge V. U. Zaytzev for several reasons, among them:
– He refused to satisfy numerous petitions about examining evidence and calling witnesses;
– He did not read out some written documents accordingly to their real content;
– And some other judicial reasons.
All of these reasons were single-handedly turned-down by the judge V. U. Zaytzev.
On December 16th 2004 the Supreme Court took a decision, in which he refused to satisfy the declaration of the plaintiffs.
On December 18th 2005 the declarators appealed.
On February 7th 2005 the appeal board of the Supreme Court left the decision unchanged.
On August 4th 2005 the parties KPRF and Yabloko and also the individuals named above addressed a plaint to the European Court of Human rights about the decision of the Supreme Court, which refused to satisfy their suit to the CEC about the cancellation of the parliamentary elections of December 7th 2003.
I remind that manipulation the elections is a crime directed against the very bases of any modern society. Since the appointment by elections of the popular representatives in the Parliament is a ground, on which the entire system is based, I repeat, of any society (whether it is Western, Indian, Pakistani and others). I will also remind that the so-called Orange revolution in Ukraine was a reaction of the Ukrainian society to the manipulated results of the presidential elections in Ukraine. It is unfortunate that the Russian opposition did not have the forces and skills to react on the manipulation of the December 2003 elections as fast and as confidently as the Ukrainian opposition did. They should have addressed the court immediately and the suit itself should have been reinforced by street manifestations of the opposition forces. By delaying the bringing of charges until next year’s fall the Russian opposition allowed the tension of the passions caused by the indignation with the manipulation fading away.
KHABAROVSK’S KURIL ISLANDS ON THE AMUR
“35 years ago border guards have defended the islands on the
Far East in bloody battles. Judging by your saying, you intend to do the same with the Kurils – give them to Japan. And Kaliningrad to comrade Gerhard?” – This is what my comrades Decembrists said, accusing president Putin of squandering Russian territories.
“When the black-haired Chinese will come, the red-haired Russian will seem to be a brother”, goes a Kazakh proverb. Many people have experienced the heavy yoke of Chinese occupation: the Tibetans, the Mongols, the Uygurs and other Turk peoples of Xingjian. Totally submitted to the army-like discipline of military capitalism and the dictate of the Chinese Communist Party, 14 000 000 heads threaten their neighbors only by their multitude. Invite one – everybody will come. China lives slowly; it is not hurrying anywhere. And it builds up its might. Like a boa gradually swallows a rabbit, so Chine swallows its territories.
It is for the reason of a possible Chinese danger that Kazakhstan’s president Nazarbaev moved the capital city from the hot Alma-Ata to the frozen Astana. Since Chinese tanks will take six hours to reach Alma-Ata through the border. The leaders of Kazakhstan’s eastern regions complain that they will soon be left without water: the Chinese are blocking the Irtish River, which takes its source in the mountains of Xingjian. There are only 15 million people in Kazakhstan; it contains extremely rich deposits of oil, uranium and rare metals. Sooner or later most of that territory, voluntarily, masochistically abandoned by Russia will become Chinese. Only recently thanks to the generosity of the Russian president China received its “Khabarovsk’s Kuril Islands” on the Amur River as a gift. The Russian president signed the order for this on October 14th 2004 in Beijing. “During his visit to China in October Vladimir Putin has signed a document about giving the island of Tabarov and a part of the Big Ussuriisky Island to the CPR. From now on the border question is definitely solved and the four-thousand-long border will become calm. /…/ As for Russia, this deal opened up the possibility to conclude billions-worth deals with China,” writes the pro-president newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda with servility. Actually, no deals have ever followed.
“Before the president has made his generous gesture, the islands belonged to the Khabarovsk region. Its residents are cautious about the prospect that their islands will now be populated by the Chinese,” points out the site News.ru.com. And it continues: “The Islands of Tabarov and the Big Ussuriisky were considered a disputed territory since a long time. In 1991 the USSR president Mikhail Gorbachev has signed a border agreement with China and the border was drawn on Amur’s channel. /…/
The only demarcated zone on the Amur River was situated before Khabarovsk on Kazakevich Channel. There was only 25 kilometers from Khabarovsk to that old border before Putin signed the order to transfer the islands. Now, after the islands were transferred, the border will pass through the city, along its riverside and in the most developed and populated part of Khabarovsk – the Industrial District. As for the disputed islands, they were not disputed originally; they were made such thanks to the long efforts of the Chinese to change the course of the Amur River (and thus its channel), which defines the line of the State border. A long time ago the Chinese have sunk a barge here. ‘In recent years, tells Viktor Ishaev, governor of Khabarovsk’s region, the Chinese have built about three hundred kilometers of dikes on their side in order to artificially turn Amur in the direction they need and empty Kazakevich Channel, whose riverbed defines the border in this zone.” That is what I am telling you, the Chinese work slowly, they are not in a hurry. Their history numbers millenniums; they have learned to trick and to cheat long ago. They are always smiling, anticipating the famous American smile by thousands of years. Without problem they have cheated the son of a metalworker and a housekeeper. He gave them the islands himself. Can you imagine that? The servile State Duma has adopted the law on May 20th 2005 and the Federation Council has reported its approval on May 25th.
Meanwhile, the head of the Main Operation Department of the RF Armed Forces Alexandr Rukshin noted, “the second fortified zone of the Far East Military district is situated on two islands on the eastern side of the Russian Chinese border”, Interfax says. The same Rukshin, as a true Russian general afraid that he might lose his general’s post, has instantly justified the transfer of the islands: “However today this zone does not represent any military significance”, he noted, reminding that this fortified zone was created in 1974 in completely different conditions and a different situation. “It is more advantageous and efficient for us to disband this zone, he added. - Today there are almost no troops from China in a zone of three hundred kilometers from Khabarovsk and there is also none in the five hundred kilometers zone on Bolshoy Island on Argun River”. (The thing is that by the same order Putin has given China also half of Bolshoy Island on Argun River in Chitinskaya region.) I am writing these lines, trying to be objective and impartial, but the slackness of the Russian general is outraging. What is three hundred kilometers with the modern means of transportation? In a few hours it is possible to transfer Chinese troops to Khabarovsk by car or truck and in one hour by helicopter. These are not the 60s; the Chinese military technology is not worse than ours now. And for saying that there are no troops in a five hundred kilometers zone on Bolshoy Island, the head of the General Staff’s Operation Department should be… Degraded? His ears tweaked? Given the title of the best groveler of the Russian Army? Decide for yourselves.