Mira Terada

Initiative: Demand the UN Defend Journalists from the Illegal Actions of Myrotvorets

This is the edited transcript of the presentation of Mira Terada to Panel 2, “Defend the Right To Deliberate! Speak Out Against Blacklists and the Suppression of the Search for Truth,” of the Schiller Institute’s Sept. 10–11 Conference, “Inspiring Humanity To Survive the Greatest Crisis in World History.” Ms. Terada, a Russian citizen, is head of the Foundation To Battle Injustice.

The full video of Panel 2 is available here.

Hello everyone. I would like to thank the Schiller Institute and the Executive Intelligence Review for this event and the opportunity to participate and contribute in it.

The Ukrainian nationalist resource Myrotvorets, which is in fact a legalized terrorist organization in Ukraine, and created on the initiative of a former freelance advisor to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, collects and publishes in its database, persons allegedly involved in anti-Ukrainian actions or words. Personal data is obtained illegally, published without permission, and exposes people’s lives and safety to a real threat.

The administration of the site, which has proclaimed itself a group of specialists, publishes the residential addresses, document numbers, and other personal data of everyone who comes into the field of view of the Myrotvorets.

As the head of the human rights organization Foundation To Battle Injustice, I have been working for several months to close this resource and recognize it as a terrorist organization. This is the reason why my personal data was also published on the Myrotvorets database. The foundation’s human rights defenders analyzed the data posted on Myrotvorets, on the basis of which we had two press conferences in Moscow, the main purpose of which was to attract the attention of the world community to the illegal publication of personal data of journalists and underage children.

Journalists, Children Targeted for Attack

Moreover, the human rights defenders of the Foundation To Battle Injustice have transferred the collected materials to the United Nations through the First Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the UN, Dmitry Polyanskiy, and to the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF.

I also would like to inform you that the Foundation To Battle Injustice submitted documents to the Federal Security Service of Russia, to investigate the activities of the Myrotvorets website and to recognize those involved in the creation of this resource as a terrorist organization. According to the materials collected by the human rights defenders of the Foundation To Battle Injustice, the Ukrainian nationalist resource contains personal data of at least 327 minors, including their residential addresses, links to social media pages, contact numbers, etc.

The youngest of the children in the Myrotvorets database is not even 10 years old: a girl born in 2012 was published on the database because of participation in an action dedicated to the 76th anniversary of a victory in World War II on May 9, 2021 in the city of Gorlovka, Donetsk People’s Republic [D.P.R.]. Another 9-year-old, from Russia, was listed on the Myrotvorets website only because her parents posted on the Internet a video of their summer vacation on the territory of Crimea. Many children received threats, including physical violence, after the publication of personal data on the Ukrainian website Myrotvorets.

In addition to the personal data of minors, Myrotvorets contains the data of journalists from Russia and the world. During the analysis of the Foundation To Battle Injustice, we came to the conclusion that the database of the Ukrainian nationalist resource contains the personal data of at least 341 journalists from 31 countries of the world. The targets for the administrators of the Ukrainian website are media employees accredited in D.P.R. and L.P.R. [Lugansk People’s Republic] who have visited those republics and Crimea, and also expressed a point of view that differs from the official position of Kiev.

In order to give at least a faint illusion of legality to their actions, the administrators of the Myrotvorets put forward serious accusations of crimes against Ukraine by journalists. Many journalists who became victims of the criminal activities of Myrotvorets reported that after the publication of their personal information on the site, they began to receive threats. Ukrainian journalist Oles Buzina, who was mentioned before, who was killed in Kiev in 2014, shortly before his death said that he received threats referring to the Myrotvorets database. A total of 12 journalists from the Myrotvorets list died violently, most of whom were Russian citizens, including Darya Dugina, whose personal data was posted a month and a half before her death.

The publication by Ukrainian nationalists not only violates a number of international agreements and laws, but also endangers the lives and safety of everyone who found themselves on the Myrotvorets firing list. The Foundation To Battle Injustice prepared an Open Letter to the UN which has already been signed by many. Today I ask all participants and viewers of this conference to sign the letter. I’ve sent the letter to the Schiller Institute and Executive Intelligence Review, so they have it. [See elsewhere in this issue—ed.] I believe it will be sent to you as well: Please sign it. And next week we’ll have an online petition put up on our website as well. The website’s address is: fondfbr.ru.

As the head of the Foundation To Battle Injustice, I’m convinced that only through the joint efforts of human rights organizations, law enforcement agencies, and international intergovernmental organizations is it possible to achieve complete blocking of the Myrotvorets resource and complete deletion of personal data, collected and posted illegally. Thank you.

Harley Schlanger (panel moderator): Thank you, Mira. We do have your letter, and we will make that available to anyone who wants it to sign it and send it in. It will be on the Schiller Institute website.