Famous dissident and human rights activist, defender of KC, celebrates his 80th birthday

Lithuanian human rights activist Viktoras Pyatkus, who has 40 years of dissident experience, was the one who founded the Lithuanian Chapter of the Helsinki Group during the times of the USSR along with his associates.

Mr. Piatkus received 4 prison sentences in Soviet camps, a total of 25 years, for his anti-Soviet activities, such as defending religious rights of people of Lithuania, as well as for his poems, which the authorities deemed to be nationalistic.

During the notorious trial over Russian human rights activist Sergei Kovalev in 1975 Mr. Piatkus put up Moscow dissidents in his apartment in Vilnius, for which he was sentenced to yet another prison term.

In this connection we would like to point out that under Russia's pressure Lithuanian authorities had blocked the work of Kavkaz Center's server and banned the provider from servicing our information agency. Viktoras Piatkus placed the server into his apartment. The authorities had blocked the internet traffic into Mr. Piatkus' apartment but would not dare confiscate the server by force, like it was done with the provider.

After that the KC server was working in the apartment belonging to Member of Lithuanian Seim (Parliament) Grazulis for some time. But even there the Lithuanian authorities found the way to block KC's work by cutting the cable running to the Parliament's house, where Mr. Grazulis' apartment was.

During the court hearing on the case of shutting down the KC server in Lithuania, Viktoras Piatkus repeatedly spoke in defense of KC and attended all hearings of the Lithuanian court on the case. Finally after several court hearings, which were initiated again and again on the initiative of Lithuania's State Security Service, Vilnius City Court recognized the actions against KC as unlawful, which allowed KC to continue its work on the Lithuanian soil.

Later on Constitutional Court of Lithuania adopted the ruling on the illegitimacy of the actions by the Lithuanian government in the context of its attempts to shut down KC under the pressure from Moscow. In all cases mentioned above Mr. Piatkus was actively speaking in defense of KC and the Lithuanian authorities had to obey the law, thanks much to his position.