Declaration of Guilt

Open Letter

To the Federal Security Bureau and
anyone else whom this does not concern


I, Svetlana Alexeyevna Gannushkina, Head of the “Civic Assistance” Committee, Council Member and Director of the “Migration and Rights” Network of the Memorial Human Rights Centre, and also Member of the Human Rights Council under the President of the Russian Federation, wish to make the following confession:

Since 1990 I have undertaken activities which may be considered by the addressees of this statement as espionage.

From the institutions of the United Nations, the European Union, the Council of Europe, and certain private Western foundations and public organizations, I have received financial resources for the bank accounts of NGOs, resources which in accordance with previously-planned actions have served to purchase food products, personal items and medicaments for internally displaced persons and refugees. The acquired foodstuffs may have contained genetically modified components causing a persistent aversion to the special operations known by the name of "cleansings" [zachistki], and hallucinogens that create a false picture of the troubles in our country and, in particular, the Chechen Republic.

We have also carried out consultations on legal problems – which do not exist in the Russian Federation – and have provided defence at the trials of socially unprotected persons, even though the need to defend them has never been confirmed by an objective checking of the facts at our disposal by the law-enforcement agencies.

For our part, we have supplied international organizations and foundations with reports containing information about persons who have received support, together with photographs of strategic targets – in particular, tent camps and places maladapted for the accommodation of refugees – thus deliberately creating a negative image our country and its leadership.

In connection with the foregoing, I declare that I do not repent of what I have done and intend to continue the activities indicated, while treating with the deepest contempt all rocks stuffed with equipment which was already obsolete in the days of my childhood.

Yours disrespectfully,

Svetlana Gannushkina


[my tr.]