Enviros and human rights activists are celebrating after Russia’s Supreme Court yesterday upheld a lower court’s acquittal of anti-nuclear activist Alexander Nikitin, who had been accused of revealing state secrets while working with a Norwegian environmental group. Nikitin, a former navy captain, was arrested in 1996 for writing a report about Soviet nuclear submarine accidents and the dumping of nuclear waste in the Arctic Sea from 1965 to 1989. He was imprisoned for 10 months, then released on condition that he not leave the country. The Supreme Court criticized prosecutors for trying to convict Nikitin on the basis of secret laws that did not even exist when he was first arrested. Enviros and human rights groups warn that Russia is continuing to persecute other green activists.
