The Finnish lawyer, Kari Silvennoinen, was arrested on his arrival at Moscow airport on 27 September 2013. The Russian authorities gave no reason for his arrest. Mr Silvennoinen has been held without food and drink over night.
Mr Silvennoinen said that he had flown in from Helsinki for a business meeting in Moscow, and that his papers were in order. He was due to fly from Moscow to London or Rome. The Finnish consul service in Moscow was assisting him.
Mr Silvennoinen suspected that the reason for his arrest was that he has written two books, “The Soviet Guilt” and “Soviet War Crimes Against Finland”, that are highly critical of the role of the Soviet Union in European history.
Mr Silvennoinen’s arrest comes amid a major DDoS attack against several websites connected with the Finnish non-governmental organisation, Pro Karelia, which has highlighted many of the same issues as Mr Silvennoinen.
UPDATE: Lawyer Escaped From Aeroflot Plane
Kari Silvennoinen was kept without food and water for 14 hours. Finnish embassy officials managed to bring him breakfast at around 10am on Saturday. “The breakfast at [Moscow airport’s] cell will, no doubt, taste better than in the Moscow Hilton,” Mr Silvennoinen commented wryly.
The border guard officer on duty at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport informed Mr Silvennoinen’s Russian partner, Vasily Davydov, that they would release Mr Silvennoinen and escort him onto an Aeroflot flight to Helsinki. They insisted that Mr Silvennoinen was not arrested officially.
“They say that I have not been arrested, but this is a locked room,” Mr Silvennoinen told Finnish daily Ilta-Sanomat. “I was able to call my Russian partner in St Petersburg. He talked with the border guard officers, but even he could not find out what this was all about.”
Mr Davydov said Mr Silvennoinen’s arrest was connected with a criminal case that his partner was pursuing in Finland. They would have had a “very important meeting” related to the case in Moscow on Monday. The arrest was an attempt to scare Mr Silvennoinen off the case, Mr Davydov alleged.
Mr Silvennoinen landed at Helsinki Airport on an Aeroflot flight some time after 5pm local time on Saturday. He told Ilta-Sanomat that he had to “escape” from the plane as Aeroflot’s flight crew had confiscated his passport and tried to prevent him from exiting the plane.
Russian border guards had given Mr Silvennoinen’s passport to the flight crew at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport. When the plane landed at Helsinki, he was asked to wait until the other passengers had exited. The flight crew claimed that Finnish police had been called to pick him up.
Mr Silvennoinen suspected that something was wrong and decided to vacate the aircraft together with everyone else. At the exit, however, Aeroflot personnel physically took hold of Mr Silvennoinen and tried to stop him. Yet he managed to yank himself free and exit the aircraft.
Mr Silvennoinen told Finnish border guards that he had escaped from the Aeroflot plane, and that the crew personnel were still holding his passport. The border guards then entered the plane and recovered the passport; they regarded the incident as “very strange.”
Mr Silvennoinen insisted that the flight crew had no legal right to confiscate his passport. “They said that Finnish police had been called to the scene, but that was not what this was about. I do have to wonder who exactly was supposed to come to the plane,” he told MTV3.
Neither the Finnish Foreign Ministry nor the Finnish Embassy in Moscow commented the incident. Mr Silvennoinen expressed gratitude to the Finnish border guards, saying they had “saved him.” Russia’s Embassy in Helsinki said they would offer their version of events on Monday.
“I do realise that I am not wanted in Russia. Back in time, I was persona non grata in the Soviet Union — now I am the same in Russia as well. […] I would like to know the official reason [for my arrest]. Naturally, they will never disclose the actual reason,” Mr Silvennoinen surmised.
Mr Silvennoinen suspected that he was arrested because of his investigations into Soviet war crimes against Finland. In an interview with Ilta-Sanomat, he was apparently alluding to a proposed law that would criminalise deviations from Moscow’s official history of World War II.
Mr Silvennoinen told Uusi Suomi that he would not return to Russia. “I will have to arrange my meetings with my Russian clients in Finland now. In the past few years, Russia has gone full Soviet again. It is better to stay away. There is no better way to tell me this. So it is goodbye, then.”
Mr Silvennoinen’s arrest gave rise to widespread consternation in Finland and elsewhere. His friends and colleagues were asking whether the arrest was linked to the ongoing DDoS attack against Pro Karelia, Carelia Club, and Karjalan Kuvalehti. The coincidence certainly seems striking.
“Russia has made an interesting addition to the discussion on visa-free travel between the EU and Russia by arresting Kari Silvennoinen, a senior lawyer and expert on international law,” Antti-Pekka Mustonen, Chairman of the Finnish Anti-Fascist Committee, quipped on his Facebook page.
Mr Mustonen demanded Aeroflot for an explanation about its treatment of Mr Silvennoinen. Reacting to the Finnish Foreign Ministry’s refusal to comment Mr Silvennoinen’s arrest, Mr Mustonen said he hoped the ministry would demonstrate better acumen in dealing with the situation.
Commenting the incident, Mikael Storsjö, Vice-Chairman of the Finnish-Russian Civic Forum, asked whether it would behove the Finnish government to freeze the negotiations on visa-free travel with Russia until Moscow first learned how to treat people travelling on valid visas.
Russia expert Paul Goble added his voice to the international chorus of consternation: “This is very, very bad, especially since Putin has said that the Winter War allowed Stalin “to correct a Bolshevik mistake.” I hope there will be an international outrage. I fear there won’t be.”
Veikko Saksi, editor-in-chief of Karjalan Kuvalehti, agreed with Professor Goble’s assessment, lambasting Finnish officials for keeping mum about the incident. “The international community should take a hard stance on the continuing deterioration of human rights in Russia,” he stated.
FINROSFORUM 
UPDATE: Kari Silvennoinen announced on his Facebook page that he was finally served food. “The breakfast at [Moscow airport’s] cell would certainly taste better than in the Moscow Hilton hotel” (where he had a room booked), Mr Silvennoinen commented.
UPDATE 2: The border guard officer on duty at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport informed Kari Silvennoinen’s Russian partner, Vasily Davydov, that they would release Mr Silvennoinen in a couple of hours and escort him onto a flight to Helsinki at 5:10pm Moscow time.
UPDATE 3: Vasily Davydov said the arrest of Kari Silvennoinen was connected with a criminal case that Mr Silvennoinen was leading in Finland. They would have had a “very important meeting” related to the case in Moscow on Monday. The arrest was an attempt to scare Mr Silvennoinen off the case, Mr Davydov alleged.
UPDATE 4: Kari Silvennoinen has landed safely at Helsinki Airport. There was a slight problem at the airport, given that officials of Russia’s state-run airline, Aeroflot, had taken Mr Silvennoinen’s passport. Luckily, Finnish border guards did allow him to return home. Mr Silvennoinen’s friends are now asking whether his arrest was linked to the ongoing DDoS attack against Karjalan Kuvalehti.
UPDATE 5: Kari Silvennoinen told the Finnish daily, Ilta-Sanomat, that he had to “escape” from the Aeroflot aircraft after it had landed at Helsinki Airport. Russian border guards gave his passport to the flight crew at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport.
When the aircraft landed at Helsinki, Mr Silvennoinen was asked to wait until the other passengers had exited. Mr Silvennoinen suspected that something was not right and decided to leave together with everyone else. At the exit, however, Aeroflot personnel took hold of him, but Mr Silvennoinen managed to yank himself free.
He then told Finnish border guards that he had escaped from the Aeroflot plane and that the crew personnel were still holding his passport. The border guards then entered the plane and recovered the passport; they regarded the incident as “very strange.”
Venäjän tulli pitää Neuvostoliittoa arvostellutta asianajaja Kari Silvennoista Moskovan lentokentän putkassa, kertoo Uusi Suomi. Takaisin Venäjälle Silvennoinen ei aio enää koskaan palata:
“Pitää työasiat nyt hoitaa jatkossa sitten niin, että venäläiset asiakkaani tulevat tapaamaan minua Suomeen. Venäjä on viimeisten vuosien aikana muuttunut Neuvostoliitoksi. Parempi pysyä poissa. Ei tätä minulle tarvitse tämän selvemmin sanoa. Se on good bye.”
http://www.uusisuomi.fi/ulkomaat/62745-suomalainen-lukittu-moskovan-lentokentalle-parempi-pysya-poissa
“Venäjä on tuonut käynnissä olevaan EU:n ja Venäjän väliseen viisumivapauskysymykseen mielenkiintoisen lisän pidättämällä suomalaisen kansainvälisen oikeuden asiantuntijan ja kokeneen asianajajan Kari Silvennoisen”, totesi Suomen antifasistisen komitean puheenjohtaja Antti-Pekka Mustonen Facebook-sivullaan.
Virallisesti Silvennoista ei pidätetty. “He väittävät, ettei minua ole pidätetty, mutta kyllä tämä on lukittu huone”, Moskovan Šeremetjevon lentokentälle vangittu Silvennoinen kertoi Ilta-Sanomille. “Pääsin soittamaan venäläiselle kollegalle Pietariin. Hän puhui vartijoiden kanssa, muttei hänkään saanut selvää, mistä on kyse”, hän jatkoi.
Russia has been no-go target to me for years already. Wish they would finally understand there what is the difference between democracy and liberal democracy.
Or more specifically, the difference between Putin’s version of “sovereign democracy” versus actual democracy?
“Sovereign democracy”, Russian-style
Ivan Krastev, 16 November 2006
http://www.opendemocracy.net/globalization-institutions_government/sovereign_democracy_4104.jsp
Asianajaja pakeni Aeroflotin koneesta
Kari Silvennoinen pääsi lauantaina Suomeen Aeroflotin lennolla, Ilta-Sanomat raportoi. Hänet saattoi koneeseen venäläinen viranomainen. “Hänellä oli passini, jonka hän antoi koneen henkilökunnan haltuun. Samalla hän antoi heille jotain ohjeita,” Silvennoinen kertoi.
Koneen laskeuduttua Helsinki-Vantaalle, koneen henkilökunta käski hänen jäädä koneeseen viimeiseksi odottamaan jotakuta. He puhuivat poliisista. Silvennoinen ei kuitenkaan jäänyt odottelemaan, vaan lähti muiden matkustajien mukana koneen uloskäynnille.
“Oven luona henkilökunta tarttui minusta kiinni. Riuhtaisin väkisin itseni irti ja pakenin koneesta”, Silvennoinen kertoi. Hän meni suoraan Rajavartiolaitoksen luo ja kertoi paenneensa Aeroflotin koneesta, mutta passinsa olevan yhä koneen henkilökunnan hallussa.
Silvennoisen mukaan rajavartijat menivät koneeseen ja saivat sieltä mukaansa Silvennoisen passin. Rajavartijat kertoivat hänelle pitäneensä tapahtunutta “tosi outona”. Ulkoministeriö ei kommentoi tapahtunutta. Tehtaankatu aikoo kommentoida tapausta maanantaina.
Silvennoisen mukaan koneen henkilökunnalla ei ollut mitään laillista oikeutta passin takavarikoimiseen. “He väittivät, että Suomen poliisi oli kutsuttu, mutta ei siitä ollut kyse. Kyllä minua kovasti ihmetyttää, kuka sinne oli tulossa”, Silvennoinen sanoi MTV3:n uutisille.
“Kyllä minä tajuan, että en ole haluttu sinne. Aikoinaan olin Neuvostoliitossa persona non grata — nyt sitten Venäjälläkin. […] Mikä tässä on se virallinen syy, se olisi hyvä saada tietää. Sitä todellista syytähän he eivät tule kertomaan”, Silvennoinen uskoo.
Suomen rajavartiosto tiesi tapauksesta, sillä he olivat lukeneet uutisia suomalaismiehen pysäytyksestä Moskovan kentälle. “Olen erittäin kiitollinen suomalaisille rajavartijoille, he pelastivat minut. Ja nyt minä menen mökille saunomaan, ei enää mitään ongelmia.”
FINROSFORUM: “Mr Silvennoinen suspected that he was arrested because of his investigations into Soviet war crimes against Finland. In an interview with Ilta-Sanomat, he was apparently alluding to a proposed law that would criminalise deviations from Moscow’s official history of World War II.”
Proposed law:
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/bill-seeks-to-criminalize-criticism-of-wwii-allied-forces/482217.html
Linkki viittasi lakiesitykseen, josta on kohistu. Jo yli vuosi sitten Suomessa monet väittivät, että tällainen laki olisi jo säädetty ja Silvennoinen sanoi samaa. Onko nyt siis jo laki vai onko ollut kyse esityksestä? Tuoretta esitystä on ajettu kauan. Sen tiedän. Ajaja on joku Putinin puolueen nainen.
Lisäksi on puhuttu, että lakiin olisi tulossa myös kielto holokaustin virallisen version epäilemisestä ja kaikenlainen “natsien puolustelu tai ihailu” kiellettäisiin myös. Samoin voittajien syyttäminen mistään rikoksista. Tällainen lakiesitys olisi jätetty jo parlamentille ja asiaa ajaisi Boris Shpigel. Onko tämä taas uusi lakialoite vai sama? Ja onko jo jokin muu laki hiljattain säädetty?