More on the Suprun trial

Mikhail Suprun's trial is conducted behind closed doors so little is known about the details but it is worth noting what the historian's legal attorney said:

Ivan Pavlov, JD, PhD, IIFD Board Chair and Mikhail Suprun’s legal attorney, stated that the essence of the accusation was not clear to him since one could hardly understand what reasons had there been to define any specific information as personal or family secret. During eight hours of court hearings, neither wronged persons nor representatives of the prosecution could not give the defense a clear explanation.

Moreover, not all wronged persons that spoke in court wished to bring Mikhail Suprun to criminal responsibility. In Pavlov’s opinion, the security bodies really seek not for defense of the wronged persons’ interests, but for a formal basis to close access to their archives for the majority of historians and other researchers.

“At present”, Pavlov said, “even a guilty verdict will be sort of positive result since the case will then get still wider public response, and will be reviewed at the federal level – by the Constitutional Court”.

He is not wrong: the case is all about controlling information, in this case about Russian/Soviet history.