CHILEAN TOURIST HELD HOSTAGE BY ARBITRARY PROSECUTION IN RUSSIA
HEARING TOMORROW MAY DECIDE IF SHE IS FINED OR JAILED FOR BUYING SOUVENIRS AT ROADSIDE STAND
27 August 2007

Russian law prohibits transporting anything deemed a "cultural treasure" out of the country. Roxana Contreras, a Chilean-born tourist from St. Louis, Missouri, traveling in the Russian countryside, understands little Russian and was unaware of this law "when a street vendor persuaded her to buy some unexceptional Red Army medals and old ruble notes", as reported by the International Herald Tribune.

She has been ordered not to leave the town of Voronezh, which lies about 365 miles south of Moscow, and where she had been visiting friends when the inadvertent infraction occurred. According to her own version of events, her lawyer and a member of the US House of Representatives, authorities have been so supremely uncooperative, she learned of the date of her hearing through the Western media.

She could face up to 7 years in prison for "attempting to smuggle cultural treasures" across the Russian border. Russian law mandates that all such artifacts older than 50 years not be sold nor moved out of the country. Purchase of such items is also illegal. Russian investigators have appraised the items Contreras purchased at a value of no more than $20.

Russian officials admit she may not have known her actions violated Russian law, but said "that's her problem". IHT reports "Aleksei Andreyeshev, her lawyer, said he was equally puzzled by what he described as court officials' capriciousness. In a telephone interview, he said that prosecutors had been unavailable and that the judge who will decide Contreras's case hung up on him when he asked about the details of the hearing."

Failure to instruct a defendant as to the date or nature of a criminal hearing, and refusal to inform her lawyer as to the nature of the proceedings —i.e., if she will be charged, judged, sentenced, and if so, what parameters are the courts following for that adjudication—, indicates a supreme lack of respect for democratic processes. The defense must be allowed to know the nature of the proceedings, the laws relating, and to prepare a defense, regardless of how trivial the matter may seem.

In response to attempts to learn about the details of the proceedings scheduled against Ms. Contreras for 28 August 2007, the court in Ramon issued a statement including the threat, apparently to both press and attorneys: "Any interference in the affairs of the court can be criminally prosecuted." This, coupled with a prior refusal to provide her attorney with information about the hearing, suggest that the prosecution is largely without legal foundation and cannot hold up to international standards of due process. [s]

• IHT: "Tourist in Russia stumbles into a legal predicament"

BEIJING SECURITY CAMERAS TREAT KISSES AS MUGGINGS
COMPUTERIZED SYSTEM NOT 'INTELLIGENT' ENOUGH, SOME FEAR TECHNOLOGY MAY FURTHER ERODE BASIC RIGHTS
1 August 2007

A system of security cameras set up throughout the Chinese capital is overseen by computers that cannot distinguish between affectionate embraces and muggings. The government is seeking to ensure that violence is not a problem in the intensely crowded city, in order to step up commerce, tourism and public image, ahead of the 2008 Olympic Games, to be hosted there. [Full Story]