Russian opposition figures Kasparov and Nemtsov appeal to save Sakharov Center

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The Associated Press Published: June 25, 2008
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MOSCOW: Former world chess champion Garry Kasparov and other Russian opposition leaders appealed to their countrymen Wednesday to help save the Moscow human rights center named for esteemed Soviet-era dissident Andrei Sakharov.

The Andrei Sakharov Museum and Community Center has faced repeated funding shortages in recent years, and its director said Wednesday that there was not enough money to pay the 21-person staff through the end of the year and it may be forced to close.

Kasparov attributed Russians' reluctance to support the center to an atmosphere of official hostility toward civil society in the country. He noted that two Moscow residents who stepped in with money when the center faced a similar shortfall last November had asked for their donations to remain anonymous.

"Today in Russia it is scary to admit that you are helping the Sakharov Museum," said Kasparov, one of the most vocal critics of the current government, which has rolled back many of the political freedoms introduced after the fall of the Soviet Union.

"Apparently the important thing to do is to buy Faberge eggs," he said at a news conference. It was a reference to billionaire businessman Viktor Vekselberg's 2004 purchase of a Faberge egg collection to repatriate the czarist-era artwork to Russia.

The center is dedicated to preserving the memory of Soviet-era human rights abuses and improving freedoms in Russia today. Sakharov, a physicist who later regretted his role in the creation of weapons of mass destruction and became a human rights activist, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975.

The Moscow center has come under pressure from the authorities in recent years after holding art exhibits that have angered the Russian Orthodox Church.

In May, center director Yury Samodurov was charged with inciting religious hatred because of a 2007 exhibit that contained, among other things, paintings portraying Jesus Christ as Mickey Mouse. Samodurov was fined $3,600 for inciting religious hatred after the center sponsored a 2003 exhibit called "Caution! Religion!"

Opposition leader Boris Nemtsov stressed the need for the center to break away from a reliance on foreign funding and find greater support among the Russian people.

"It's not quite right that the museum is being sustained on various foreign funds," Nemtsov said at the news conference. "What, we do not have people in Russia who value Sakharov, ... their own freedom and that of others?"

The American Andrei Sakharov Foundation and foreign grants have helped sustained the center since it opened in 1996. Its 2008 budget was US$540,000.

Nemtsov said he and Kasparov were helping to support the center.

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