MOSCOW, January 19, 2006  –  There are indications that a failed civil court case brought by a gay postgraduate and Lomonosov Moscow State University  has reached the office of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The postgraduate, Nikolai Alekseev, who head the GayRussia.ru project in Moscow and is also executive secretary of the International Day Against Homophobia, claimed discrimination of grounds of sexual orientation by the university and sought “material and moral compensation” when he was denied the subject ‘The Legal Status of Sexual Minorities” for a scientific thesis.

In June last year, the Nikulinsky local court in Moscow found against Mr. Alekseev, after several hours of consideration.  The judge said that she could not find “anything that contradicts the law” in the actions of the university.

Mr. Alekseev had also claimed that information about his sexuality had been made public within the faculty, while the university insisted that it was Mr. Alekseev himself who was “the distributor of the information on his own homosexuality.

In September last year, three judges at Moscow City Court dismissed an appeal by Mr. Alekseev, saying that the lower court decision was correct, even though Mr. Alekseev claimed there were mistakes in the original ruling.

Yesterday, it came to light that a French citizen had written to President Putin regarding this case last June, immediately following the lower court decision.

The letter, from ‘Joel L’ asked the President to “provide for fair consideration of the appeal”. He pointed out to the President there had been an unfair judgement by the lower court as discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation had been proven.

‘Joel L’ also said that if the Moscow City Court also found for the University, Mr. Alekseev would then be entitled to petition the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

It has now come to light that the Russian President’s office reacted immediately to this letter and forwarded it to the Moscow City Court, with an annotation to the part of the letter that said: “N. Alekseev was sacked from the postgraduate programme of MSU for his non traditional sexual orientation. On 10th June 2005 Nikulinsky local court of Moscow under the pressure from MSU dismissed the claims of N. Alekseev”

Court records show that when the deputy head of the Moscow City Court, Mr. A.V. Paukov, received the letter from the Russian President’s office he immediately forwarded it Mrs. T.A. Verzilina, the head of the lower court, asking that the letter be filed in the case records before being sent to the higher court for the appeal hearing.

It is not clear as to whether or not the three appeal judges – one man and two women – ever saw the letter and the interest in the case being shown by the President’s office.

“I am glad that Administration of Russian President showed their interest in this case and immediately reacted to the letter in my support,” Mr. Alekseev said last night.  “This hopefully means that the Russian President, as a guarantor of the constitution and the rights provided in it, is taking all the steps to restore justice.”

He added that his complaint to the European Court of Human Rights against Russian Federation is being drawn by Austrian and British lawyers.

“But it could well be that the case will be decided in Russia before the start of the Strasbourg hearing.  There is a strong possibility that the results of the process will be reconsidered,” he added.