During 2014, the Committee of Concerned Scientists continued to advocate on behalf of scientists, academics, engineers and physicians. We wrote in concern for more than 30 individuals or groups of individuals, located in 11 countries. We generally addressed our letters to the heads of state, as well as to the ministries or local authorities with jurisdiction over the case when we were able to ... Continue Reading>>
CCS Urges Reinstatement of Russian Scientist Punished for Attending Stony Brook Workshop
Four scientists at Russia's Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics (ITEP) resigned in protest after their colleague Alexander Gorsky was fired for attending a workshop at Stony Brook University. As a condition for his attendance, where Gorsky was to deliver a paper published a year earlier, ITEP's administration allegedly demanded a cooperative agreement with Stony Brooks and a ... Continue Reading>>
Russian Winner of Sakharov Prize Writes Urging President Putin to Help Kokabee
Boris Altshuler, physicist and chairman of the NGO "Right of the Child", who won the 2013 Sakharov human rights prize together with Omid Kokabee, addressed a letter to President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation, suggesting that he appeal to Dr. Hassan Rouhani, President of Iran, requesting Omid Kokabee's release from prison so that the latter can pursue his studies at the University of ... Continue Reading>>
CCS Protests the Beating of Activist and Physicist in Moscow
Dr. Lev Ponomarev, a prominent Russian physicist and human rights activist, was violently evicted from the offices of his organization, "For Human Rights," during a dispute over the lease. Ponomarev and five others were treated so roughly by security guards hired by the city of Moscow that they had to be treated at a first aid clinic. CCS protested the assault to Russian authorities, ... Continue Reading>>
Russian Physicist and Human Rights Activist Beaten at his Moscow Office
Russian physicist and human rights defender Lev Ponomarev was beaten up when he and his staff were violently evicted from the Moscow office of his organization For Human Rights on June 22. Dr. Ponomarev worked and published for many years in elementary particle physics at the Institute for Theoretical and Experimental Physics in Moscow. He became involved in human rights and politics in the ... Continue Reading>>
CCS Urges Putin to Release Student Activist
CCS wrote a letter to Russian president Vladimir Putin in support of Yaroslav Belousov, a political science student who was arrested in June of 2012. His trial started recently in Moscow. According to press reports, Belusov was arrested while participating in an authorized protest demonstration. He has been in jail for a year and could be convicted of a sentence of up to 12 years. According to ... Continue Reading>>
Arrest of Environmentalist on Murder Charges May be Attempt of Further Intimidation, CCS Says
The Committee of Concerned Scientists wrote on behalf of Russian zoologist and environmental activist Suren Gazaryan and geologist Evgeny Vitishenko in May 2012 to protest criminal charges designed to retaliate for environmental inspections. Those charges resulted in a three-year suspended sentence for Dr. Gazaryan. In August 2012, Dr. Gazaryan was charged with attempted murder of a security ... Continue Reading>>
Russian Professors Sentenced for Spying: CCS Questions Due Process of Closed Trial
Following up on its letter of 2010, CCS wrote to President Putin protesting the due process followed when Professors Svyatoslav Bobyshev and Yevgeny Afanasyev of Baltic State Technical University were sentenced to 12 years each for spying for China. The sentences were reportedly handed down in a closed trial. These accusations stem from a cooperative relationship Baltic State Technical University ... Continue Reading>>
Russian Zoologist Gazaryan and Geologist Vitishenko Threatened with Criminal Charges for Environmental Protest
Fines and threat of criminal prosecution against these scientists appear to be aimed at intimidation, according to reports received by CCS, because both scientists protested state and local actions they believe violate Russian environmental laws. ... Continue Reading>>
Yakov Alpert, 1911-2010
Yakov Alpert, a pioneer in serveral fields of radio and space plasma physics, died on October 17, 2010 in Boston at the age of 99. Alpert participated in Sputnik I and many other Soviet satellite projects in the 1960s and 1970s. He became a Russian refusenik when he applied for an exit visa in 1975. Like all dissident scientists in the U.S.S.R., he lost his job and the right to work in his ... Continue Reading>>