Employee of HRC "Memorial" in Krasnodar Territory complains of pressure

Anastasia Denisova, an employee of the Human Rights Centre (HRC) "Memorial" in the Krasnodar Territory, president of the Krasnodar territorial public organization Youth Group for Tolerance "ETnIKA" and a member of Youth Human Rights Movement, complains of breaching her right to the freedom of travel and pressure in the context of her public work in the Krasnodar Territory and elsewhere in Russia.

On October 4, Anastasia was to fly by "Austrian Airlines" to Warsaw to the OSCE Conference on Human Dimension. However, she was forced to give up the flight because of the unreasonable, as she believes, demand of the employee of the Service of Aviation Safety (SAS) of the Krasnodar Airport to put her laptop computer into the luggage. This is stated in the message of the HRC "Memorial" that has arrived to the "Caucasian Knot".

The employee of the SAS of the International Airport of Krasnodar Dombrovskiy, Boris Aleksandrovich, told her, without any explanations of the grounds, that her knapsack should be registered as luggage. Ms Denisova said that the knapsack completely fit the parameters of the cabin baggage (it was admitted as such by the airline and other instances) and contained no items forbidden to transportation.

"I obeyed to the unreasonable request of the SAS worker, unfastened the main section of the knapsack with my belongings and sent it to luggage. In the remained part I had only my laptop, purse and documents. I tried to pass the pre-flight survey again, but the same Mr Dombrovskiy, rather infuriated and holding my hands stopped me and ordered to send the rest of my knapsack to the luggage. I objected saying that the laptop is worth 60,000 roubles and it'll get broken at transportation," the human rights activist says.

Dombrovskiy gave no reaction and kept repeating about his instructions, and that "the laptop was not looked through."

The lady, head of passport control, who was invited by other inspectors, tried to interfere with the conflict. She was indignant, saying that such things never happened before, and asked to pass Denisova. However, the SAS agent said again about his instructions and invited the lady into his office. When she left, she made a helpless gesture and advised to address the airline representative.

The "Austian Airlines" official confirmed to Dombrovskiy that the airline renders no service of special transportation of articles, but the knapsack is not fit for transporting computers and the laptop, once placed there and into the luggage with be surely damaged. Dombrovskiy then also invited the airline worker to his office.

"Then he went out and offered me the following way out, which, as he said, was prompted by the customs: I give the laptop into luggage, and then he personally would bring it onboard. I asked: 'Is it an illegal scheme?' He said 'yes', and I refused," said Denisova. After that, the departure mark in her passport was cancelled.

Anastasia views this incident as a violation of her right to the freedom of travel and as pressure on her because of her public work in the Krasnodar Territory and Russia, including under the project of Georgian-Russian civil dialogue.