German Initiative for Freedom of Grigory Pasko
Co-sponsored by the Scientists' Initiative Responsibility for Peace and Sustainability, a German INES member organization, an initiative "Freedom for Pasko" has been set up. Currently, the grouping is collecting signatures for an Open Letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin with which he will be urged to do his utmost for a cessation of the sentence against Pasko. In December last year, Pasko was sentenced to four years in prison by a military court, allegedly for divulging state secrets on the combat-readiness of Russia's Pacific Fleet to Japanese media. But the court found him guilty of illegally attending a secret meeting of Russian Pacific Fleet commanders in 1997 and possessing notes he made at the meeting, where officers discussed the results of naval maneuvers. However, Pasko, including the German initiative, maintain the charges are retribution for his reports of alleged environmental abuses by the navy, including dumping radioactive waste into the sea.
On 25 June, 2002, the Military Chamber of the Supreme Court confirmed the sentence against Pasko. The German initiative is now pressing for the freedom of Pasko. Its Open Letter to be delivered in September is referring, among other things, to the fact that, as a member of the European Council and the OSCE, Russia has to guarantee freedom of opinion and freedom of press.
Contact of the "Freedom for Pasko" initiative: ines_nat@t-online.de.
