On 5 July, 2007, Andrey Savelyev, an MP, for :Rodina; and notorious for his ultra right-wing ideas, announced that the Prosecutor's Office, acting on a complaint from him, initiated a prosecution against the SOVA Center on 15 June 2007.

Savelyev claimed that SOVA had libelled him and Sergey Pykhtin, secretary of the central council of his :Great Russia; party. According to Savelyev, he learned about the charges against SOVA from the deputy Prosecutor-General Victor Grin.

Our Center, however, has, as yet, no information on the precise charges brought against it and are not aware of which particular publication the libel charges refer to.

Savelyev recently published the text (in Russian) of his complaint to the Prosecutor's Office on a pro-Kremlin website, inter alia, demanding that an item from SOVA be subjected to legal examination.

The material from SOVA (in Russian) does not particularly refer to Savelyev, but rather to the website of the :United Russia's :Russian project;.

SOVA wrote that, on this website, among other informational partners of the "Russian project", is named a magazine titled Zolotoy lev (:Golden Lion;) which has published purely racist articles and pointed out that Savelyev and Pykhtin were members of its editorial board.

We doubt whether this case will have a successful outcome for Savelyev because such supposedly :offensive; descriptive terms as :ultra right-wing;, :radical right-wing; or :racist; - which are often used on SOVA's website - simply describe the ideology of organisations and individuals who happen to come to our attention.

Andrey Savelyev is the leader of the newly formed party, :Great Russia;. He is a member of DPNI (Movement Against Illegal Immigration) and a signatory of the infamous :Letter of the 500;, an antisemitic appeal to outlaw all Jewish organisations in Russia.