The European Court reached a decision in the case of Finogenov et al, better known as the 'Nord-Ost' case, on December 20th, 2011. It determined that the Russian authorities violated Article 2 of the European Convention (the right to life), and on June 4th, 2012, this decision became final.

This did not take place on March 20th, 2012 — typically a decision enters into force three months after its delivery — but only in early June because a group of five judges at the European Court, headed by the Court President, had to act on a petition for the case to be considered by the Grand Chamber in order to get an acknowledgement of yet another

violation on the part of the Russian authorities. This appeal was filed by a small group of applicants, as most of the applicants agree with the court's decision. If most do not quite agree, in any case they filed no complaints that I know about.

I do not know if the five judges found it easy to reach a decision to not transfer the case to the Grand Chamber, but my principals in the transfer petition found it very difficult. And why is that? What is so complicated about the situation? The fact is that, in general, the applicants agree with the Court's recognition of the violation of the right to life and do not contest the entire decision, but rather have just one question as a matter of principle.

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While browsing the Internet, we accidentally came across a picture of an elderly woman holding a sign dedicated to ‘Nord-Ost’. We were moved by both the sign, and the person holding it.

We wished to know more about this person, and as a result of searches of Live Journal, we learned that this elderly woman is a survivor of the Leningrad Blockade, a teacher, and draws her own posters.

Her political leanings are Democrat, and on every 31st of the month, as well on as other days, she walks along Nevsky Prospect with her signs, and often stands with her posters in front of Saint Petersburg’s large exhibition and shopping center, Gostiny Dvor.

On the evening of May 6th she was at Gostiny Dvor, holding up two signs, with two more on the sidewalk next to her. The police simply walked on by, and no one bothered her. The next day, however, she was again at Gostiny Dvor, and was arrested for some reason, but the police chief ordered her released, because: “I won’t holding a Blockade survivor here!” Later she moved her demonstration to St. Isaac’s Square, and stood by Tsar Nikolai’s monument with a sign protesting Putin’s inauguration.

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The terrorist attack in Beslan: Strasbourg considers complaints against Russia from hostages and their families

On April 10th, 2012, the European Court of Human Rights communicated to the Russian Federation seven complaints of violations by the state of the right to life and the right to effective remedy with respect to acts and omissions by the authorities before, during and after the seizure of hostages in School #1 in Beslan on September 1st, 2004. This means that the complaints have been officially communicated to the respondent state. Strasbourg asked parties to the proceedings a number of questions in order to allow consideration of the admissibility and merits of the complaints. It also required the government to provide copies of available case materials for its examination.

The entire proceedings were given the tentative title of ‘Tagayeva and Others v. Russia, and Six other Applications, complaints #26562/07, &tc.’ It contains complaints from 447 applicants found in the following petitions: ‘Tagayeva and Others v. Russia, complaint #26562/07’, which was submitted, inter alia by Emma Lazarovna Tagayeva, head of the all-Russia public organization ‘Voice of Beslan’, ‘Dudiyeva and Others v. Russia, complaint #14755/08’, filed by Susanna Petrovna Dudiyeva, head of the North Ossetia public organization ‘Beslan Mothers association of victims of terrorist acts’ (commonly referred to as ‘Beslan Mothers Committee’), ‘Albegova and Others v. Russia, complaint #49339/08’, ‘Savkuyev and Others v. Russia, complaint #49380/08’, ‘Aliyeva and Others v. Russia, complaint #51313/08’, ‘Kokova and Others v. Russia, complaint #21294/11’, and ‘Nogayeva and Others v. Russia, complaint #N37096/11’.

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The case filed at the request of President Dmitry Medvedev, which was to “shake up” the entire transportation police force due to the terrorist attack at Domodedovo, is now

closed. Investigators conducted hundreds of examinations, performed dozens of searches, and interrogated three hundred witnesses, but they did not find any evidence against the suspects. It was found that at the time of last year's attack the transportation security system was unregulated. Investigators, however, did identify several instances of fraud at the airport, and identified these for separate proceedings.

On Friday the Investigating Committee of Russia (ICR) announced that it had closed the criminal investigation into the failure of the transportation security requirements at Domodedovo international airport (Article 263–1 of the Criminal Code). The case was filed after Magomed Yevloyev on January 24th, 2011, brought an explosive device unhindered into the airport's entrance terminal and set it off. The terrorist attack killed 37 people and injured another 173. Immediately after the tragedy, the president ordered security officials to “shake up” the entire transportation security police force.

“Just as there were reasonable grounds to initiate a criminal case, there were also reasonable grounds to terminate it,” stated the ICR.

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Thursday marks exactly two years since the terrorist attacks on the Moscow subway. The Investigation Committee of Russia continues to investigate the circumstances of this tragedy.

At this point investigators have identified all the direct perpetrators and organizers of the blasts.

It was also determined that members of the militant group were trained in the use of explosives while in the Khasavyurt district of Dagestan, where they built improvised explosive devices.

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(Applications nos. 18299/03 and 27311/03)

<…>

6. Rescue and evacuation operation

<…>

(c) Conclusions

263. It is not possible for the Court to establish an individual story for each deceased hostage: where he or she was sitting when the operation began, how seriously he or she was affected by the gas and “concomitant factors” (stress, dehydration, chronic diseases etc.), what kind of treatment was received on the spot, at what time he or she arrived at a hospital, what kind of treatment he or she received in that hospital, etc.

264. Further, what is true in respect of the majority of the hostages may not be true in each individual case, taken alone. Thus, the alleged lack of medical aid would be irrelevant in a situation where a person had already died by the time the medics arrived. Equally, the Court cannot exclude that some of the victims were amongst those who were first to receive medical assistance but nevertheless died, because they were very weak or ill and died as a result of “a stroke of misfortune, a rare and unforeseeable occurrence” (see Giuliani and Gaggio, cited above, § 192).