“The European Court of Human Rights is trying to rewrite history and justify Fascism,” the Russian State Duma said in a statement concerning the court’s ruling in the Kononov case, Voice of Russia reports. “The position voiced in the ruling of the Grand Chamber supports the activities of Latvian authorities that carry out a policy of revanchism and chauvinism and encourages state leaders who call to revise the principles and decisions of the Nuremberg tribunal.”
Earlier the Russian Foreign Ministry said “the Grand Chamber of the court has practically agreed with those who try to reassess the results of the Second World War and to whitewash the Nazis and their accomplices.”
“The decision of the members of the Court in the case of Mr. Kononov seriously damages the credibility of the Council of Europe in general and may be viewed as an attempt to draw new dividing lines in Europe,” the ministry said.
The standoff between Vasily Kononov, the 87-year old WWI veteran and the Latvian government has been going on for 12 years. The Latvian government sentenced him to prison and declared him a war criminal for fighting against Nazis to liberate his motherland after joining partisans at the beginning of the war. In summer 1944, he was involved in a special operation during which 9 Nazi collaborators were executed following a verdict of a partisan tribunal. Earlier, a partisan group was destroyed as a result of the actions of these people. At present, the Latvian government insists that the Nazi collaborators were just civilians.
In 2008, The European Court overturned a Latvian court ruling and ordered the Latvian government to pay him compensation for sending him to prison. It admitted that the action of Vasily Kononov was not criminal during the war. However, in May 2010, the Grand Chamber annulled the ruling. The ruling will have not only disastrous consequences for human rights area in Europe but also will deal a slap in the face of all groups that put up resistance to Nazis. Proceeding from this logic, it’s possible to start legal proceedings against American, British and French participants of the resistance movement and military operations, Andrei Klimov, deputy chairman of the State Duma’s international affairs committee, told Voice of Russia.
“This is a dangerous precedent because millions of people of the allied countries fought in the Second World War,” says Andrei Klimov. “For one, the allied forced bombed Dresden. Women and babies, the old, patients and people of various nationalities died following their bombardments on Berlin. Let us prosecute the pilots of these aircraft under the same logic. Similarly, partisans who fought against Nazi occupation across Europe can also be tried because they also killed Nazis and their collaborators. These are the ideas that come to our minds following the ruling of the Grand Chamber in Strasburg,” Andrei Klimov said.
