On 17 March 2006, without providing any explanation, Russian authorities blocked all of Open Russia’s bank accounts with the Trust National Bank (General License No 3279 issued by the Central Bank). As Open Russia was the main donor of the Public Verdict Foundation, most of the Foundation’s projects are left without funding.

We appeal to interested individuals and organizations for support.

What do we need funding for?

The Public Verdict Foundation was established in February 2004 as a non-profit, non-partisan organization offering legal assistance to victims of abuse committed by the law enforcement authorities in Russia. Our main goal is to defend people who suffer abuse at the hands of law enforcement agents. For this purpose, we hire lawyers to represent the victims in courts.

Since July 2004, the Public Verdict Foundation has been running its Human Rights Hotline project in the Central, Far Eastern, Privolzhsky, Southern, North-Western, Siberian, and Urals Federal Districts, and also in Kaliningrad and Kaliningrad Oblast.

The Hotline is a free, 24-hour phone-based legal advice service available to individuals and organizations. The Hotline project seeks to educate the public in legal matters and to encourage mass media in Russia’s federal districts to cover human rights issues. It helps us raise public awareness of human rights and ways to defend them, and build a foundation for further legal and human rights education. Since the Hotline was launched, more than 25,000 people have accessed the service.

You can help victims reclaim their rights!

The lawyers we have hired

It is extremely difficult to represent a victim against a defendant who is a police officer, because in such cases the victim and his/her lawyer have to face the powerful governmental machinery; a lawyer must be highly knowledgeable and experienced to deal effectively with the challenge. Therefore, we always hire strong, experienced lawyers.

Some of the lawyers who have taken our clients’ cases include:

Yury Sidorov who won the Mikheyev case, the Sankin case, and many other high-profile cases supported by the Public Verdict Foundation and the Nizhny Novgorod Oblast Committee against Torture.
Valentin Chaplygin, the Kazakova case.
Abusupyan Gaitayev who won the Baybekov case.
Stanislav Markelov, currently defending the victims of police abuse in Blagoveschensk, Bashkortostan.
Tamara Kuchma and Karen Nersissyan, the Maininger case.
Valentin Yeruslanov, the Abrosimov, Tulovchikov, and Liklachyov case, and other high-profile cases supported by the Public Verdict Foundation and Individual and Law NGO in Yoshkar Ola.
The list goes on.

This is the way it works. A victim contacts either the Public Verdict Foundation or a partner human rights group and provides evidence of abuse at the hands of law enforcement agents.

The Public Verdict Foundation or its partner NGOs review the evidence. If the victim’s case is supported by facts and can be litigated, the Board of the Foundation decides whether a lawyer should be hired and appropriate legal and informational support provided. The Board consists of prominent Russian lawyers and human rights defenders, including Sergey Vitsin, Boris Zolotukhin, Oleg Orlov, Henry Reznik, Tatyana Lokshina, Lev Levinson, Vladimir Smirnov, and Alexei Simonov.

In cases approved by the Board, the Foundation develops a litigation strategy, hires a lawyer, and pursues the case jointly with an NGO partner to restore the victim’s rights and to bring the culprits to justice.

Some of the results achieved jointly by the Public Verdict and its regional NGO partners

Samara. Mr. Maininger was fully acquitted due to «non-involvement in the crime.» The court awarded Mr. Maininger RUR 318,000 to be paid by the Russian Ministry of Justice as compensation for false charges and illegal detention in a pre-trial prison, and for the lost earnings during his detention. Eugeny Maininger was charged with alleged murder of Togliattinskoye Obozrenye newspaper editor-in-chief. Mr. Maininger was held in pre-trial detention prison for one year and subjected to physical abuse to force a confession.
See details (in Russian) at http://www.publicverdict.org/ru/articles/news/4060206.html

Grozny (the Chechen Republic). An officer of Khanty-Mansiisky OMON was sentenced to 11 years for torture of Mr. Murdalov (the ’Cadet’ case). The Foundation financed a lawyer acting on behalf of the victim, and provided informational support of the case.
See details (in Russian) at http://www.publicverdict.org/ru/articles/news/lapinvrd.html

Yekaterinburg. Police officer Szentpeteri was sentenced to 10 years for killing a detainee.
See details (in Russian) at http://www.publicverdict.org/ru/articles/found/lapinvrd.html

Yoshkar Ola (Mari El Republic). Three policemen were sentenced to lengthy prison terms for killing a local university student. This high-profile case was widely covered by the media and nicknamed a ’police with baseball bats’ case.
See details (in Russian) at http://www.publicverdict.org/ru/articles/found/4090306.html

Cheboksary (Chuvashia Republic). The court awarded Mr. Yershov RUR 45,000 to be paid by the Russian Ministry of Finance. A policeman beat Mr. Yershov, causing a permanent disability.
See details (in Russian) at http://www.publicverdict.org/ru/cases/ershov.html

Chita Oblast. In the Stepanov case, a court sentenced to lengthy prison terms a group of policemen who tortured Mr. Stepanov during interrogation; the victim died later on the same day. The court awarded RUR 100,000 to be paid by the Russian Ministry of Finance to the victim’s sister.
See details (in Russian) at http://www.publicverdict.org/ru/articles/news/5251005.html

Moscow. A policeman was convicted for attempted murder of Mr. Baibekov who had committed an administrative offence of entering a Metro station without paying his fare. The policeman was sentenced to 9 years of strict regime prison.
See details (in Russian) at http://www.publicverdict.org/ru/articles/found/9150306.html

Nizhny Novgorod. Two policemen were convicted to 4 years of general regime prison colony in the landmark Mikheyev case of police torture in Russia.
See details (in Russian) at http://www.publicverdict.org/ru/articles/found/1270106.html

Cheboksary (Chuvashia Republic). Two policemen were convicted for refusing to accept a crime report from Ms. Salikhova. Later, the Russian Prosecutor General referred to the Salikhova case on many occasions at service meetings as an example of inadequate law enforcement performance.
See details (in Russian) at http://www.publicverdict.org/ru/articles/found/2021205.html

Postov-on-the-Don. A third trial of the Ulman case has been opened (the case is monitored by the Public Verdict Foundation), following a second reversal of acquittal by the RF Supreme Court.
See details (in Russian) at http://www.publicverdict.org/ru/cases/ulman.html

…and others

Since the Foundation started this work, it has managed to bring to justice 40 law enforcement agents; 34 of them were convicted. Russian courts awarded 16 claims for non-pecuniary damages for a total of 1262,588 rubles.

Public Verdict Foundation employs highly skilled staff lawyers who review the incoming evidence of abuse committed by law enforcement agents against citizens. Staff lawyers of the Foundation help partner NGOs conduct independent investigations; we advise regional lawyers on writing court applications, complaints and other procedural documents; we interact with victims and their attorneys, and prepare analytical reports.

We encourage mass media to report incidents of official abuse and human rights violations. Working with mass media requires persistence, skills of packaging information in a media-friendly format, and continuous cooperation with journalists in focusing public attention on the problem of official abuse in general and stories of individual victims. In 2005 alone, staff members of Public Verdict Foundation initiated about 2,000 media publications covering incidents of abuse at the hands of law enforcement agents and stories of individuals who stand up for their rights.

All activities described above are under threat. We are looking for funding to support our work. We appeal for help to all who believe that our efforts make a difference and must continue.

How you can help

You can make a transfer to ruble or U.S. dollar bank accounts of the Foundation, indicating one of the following purposes of your donation:

1. To support lawyers’ fees in litigation
2. To support statutory activities of the Foundation
3. To support the Human Rights Hotline.

Bank details for U.S. dollar transfers:

Bank Rossiysky Kapital
SWIFT: ROSK RU MM
Account No: 40703840700070000516
Corresponding Bank: Deutsche Bank Trust
SWIFT: BKTRUS33
Account No: 04411026

We will provide monthly updates of the use of your donations on this page.

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