23:08, 24 February 2004

Frodo NGO takes baton from outlawed School of Peace

The Krasnodar Regional Court has denied the appeal by the Novorossiysk Fund "School of Peace" against the decision of a district court on the liquidation of the Fund at the suit by the Main Department of Justice. The functionaries' claims were based on the fact that the Fund had had only one founding member since 2000. Authoritative Moscow lawyers from the Independent Expert Legal Council find it possible to continue the Fund's work with one founding member, but the court did not even add materials of the expert examination and the shorthand report of the court sitting to the case. "Numerous violations took place on the part of the court in the course of the six-month trial," says the executive director of the Fund, Vadim Karastelev. "Therefore we will use both internal and international means of protection against arbitrariness. Despite the decision by the regional court, the Novorossiysk human rights activists will continue their work in the new NGO Frodo, which has been registered recently.

Editors note: See also the article "Krasnodar NGO "Southern Wave" is indignant at closure of Fund "School of Peace"".

Author: Yana Lobastova, CK correspondent

Source: Caucasian Knot