jimbabwe Igor Golubenkov, Co-Chair of the local environmental group, Saving Taman!, and Assistant to the Deputy to the Temryuk City Council in Krasnodar Region in southern Russia, was brutally beaten on Friday, February 24 by two men who warned him, “Stop your environmental work.” Mr. Golubenkov was treated at the local hospital.
Mr. Golubenkov has been an active leader of Saving Taman! since the group was founded in 2007 in response to increasing industrialization on Russia’s Taman Peninsula, where he makes his home. Golubenkov and his colleagues have filed complaints with the Office of Compliance, Advisor/Ombudsman at the World Bank Group in response to environmental violations by the company, Tamanneftegaz, which has been building the Russkiy Mir Oil Terminal on the Taman Peninsula.
Mr. Golubenkov has also actively monitored the activities of the company, “EFCO OOO Food Ingredients”, which runs a palm oil processing and wheat export facility on the Taman Peninsula and has been found guilty of violating Russian environmental law numerous times.
Mr. Golubenkov stated, “If the people who did this think they will intimidate me and my family into stopping our work, they are wrong.” He filed an official crime report with the local police.
EFCO OOO Food Ingredients is holding a public hearing on March 1st as part of its plans to expand the company’s work on the Taman Peninsula.
The attack on Golubenkov takes place as the atmosphere for civil society activists and journalists in Russia has become increasingly threatening, and the government has failed to take action to protect those who are pressured to stop their work.
The Taman Peninsula is situated in southern Russia between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, and is a unique ecosystem that is home to traditional fishing and wine making communities since the time of the Greeks and is a popular tourist destination. Mr. Golubenkov has lived there for over twenty years and is a small business owner in addition to working to protect Taman’s environment and citizens.
For more information about the Taman Peninsula and local efforts to protect its environment go to https://crudeaccountability.org/campaigns/taman/.
Contact:
Igor Golubenkov +7-909-4594456, taman-igor@nullyandex.ru
Kate Watters +1-571-332-5895, kate@nullcrudeaccountability.org
Crude Press Release
February 27, 2012
Contact: Kate Watters
kate@nullcrudeaccountability.org
703-299-0854