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THE EVIDENCE is growing that Vladimir Putin sees no connection
between the new partnership he says he is seeking between Russia
and the West and his own domestic policies, which frequently violate
Western norms of democracy and human rights. Mr. Putin continues
to repress independent media that report critically on his government,
and he appears determined to continue his military's brutal campaign
against rebels in Chechnya, following a feint at negotiations.
Perhaps most tellingly, the security agency that Mr. Putin used
to head, the Federal Security Service -- successor to the Soviet
KGB -- continues to press on implacably with a series of bogus
espionage cases against independent journalists and academics,
despite mounting criticism from Russian and international human
rights groups. On Tuesday, after a secret trial before a military
court, one of the most flagrant of those cases concluded with
a four-year prison sentence for Grigory Pasko, a journalist who
exposed the ! improper dumping of radioactive waste by the Russian
Navy.
Mr. Pasko's case attracted particular attention in part because
of his determined and courageous resistance -- the 39-year-old
reporter has publicly insisted on his innocence and refused to
accept a pardon -- and in part because the official charges against
him were as transparently trumped up as his reporting was embarrassing
to the Russian military. Prosecutors from Mr. Putin's FSB claimed
that Mr. Pasko, who worked for a military newspaper, had taken
notes at a meeting of officers and planned to leak them to Japanese
media -- though no one says he did so. What Mr. Pasko unquestionably
did do is provide Japanese television with a videotape of Russian
ships pouring liquid nuclear waste into the Sea of Japan. That
action on his part was not illegal, but Mr. Pasko was charged
with treason and espionage. When he was acquitted of these charges
at a first trial, the FSB appealed and persuaded a higher court
to order a second one. Like several other independent journalists
and a! cademics targeted by the FSB, Mr. Pasko has seen his case
drag on for years; even when judges are brave enough to dismiss
charges or declare suspects innocent, the prosecutions continue.
In this case, the perversion of justice has been so glaring that
even some of Mr. Putin's closest political allies have been embarrassed.
"I understand how a man feels who is condemned for something
he is not guilty of," said the speaker of Russia's parliament,
Sergei Mironov, in repudiating Mr. Pasko's conviction. Amnesty
International and the Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontiers have
also spoken out. Their words offer the hope that Mr. Putin might
yet be convinced that cases like Mr. Pasko's are incompatible
with his new foreign policy; that his government cannot simultaneously
conduct secret espionage trials of journalists and intellectuals,
and demand the right to take part as an equal partner in decision-making
by the Western democracies inside NATO. But Mr. Putin won't be
convinced by human rights activists, or even his parliamentary
speaker; he needs to get the message more forcefully from Western
governments, starting with the Bush administration.
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Girogry Pasko Case
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