Khimki Forest movement leader violently detained in Moscow

August 4, 2010

Yevgenia Chirikova, the leader of the Movement to Defend Khimki Forest, has today been forcibly detained by police in Moscow immediately after a press conference on the persecution of activists opposing the construction of a motorway through the Khimki Forest just outside Moscow. [1]

At the time of writing she has been released after several hours of interrogation, but urged to come to Khimki's police station tomorrow for another round of questioning.

The arrest comes after several tense weeks in which illegal felling of trees began in the Khimki Forest and was opposed by local activists who set up a camp there. Yevgenia herself was physically attacked by unknown perpetrators in the forest on 16 July and suffered minor injuries. After initial success in temporarily stopping the logging, activists were forcibly evicted by police from the area that is now heavily guarded. At an unsanctioned rally in the Khimki forest this Monday approximately 10 more demonstrators were arrested by the police. [2]

Khimki Forest forms part of the planned route of the EUR 8 billion Moscow - St. Petersburg motorway project carried out by a consortium headed by French company Vinci, and potentially financed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the European Investment Bank (EIB). However local people argue that routing the motorway through the forest, a popular respite area for local residents in the polluted and densely populated region and home to elks, boars and other animals, is unnecessary as a straighter route variant exists that would most likely cost less.

“Several Khimki activists have recently been detained on the streets and kept in prisons without court decisions”, according to Mikhail Matveev of the Movement to Defend Khimki Forest. “Why is the government pursuing the forest defenders and not the illegal forest cutters? They are making activists fight for their own freedom instead of Khimki Forest.”

“The European banks often like to argue that their involvement raises the standards of projects, but there isn’t much sign of it happening here. The EBRD and EIB must either intervene promptly and effectively to stop the human rights violations and change the route, or if they cannot, they must withdraw from the project”, concludes Vladlena Martsynkevych from CEE Bankwatch Network.