The constitution allegedly protects environmental whistleblowers and environmental information has been declassified. But environmental and human-rights advocates are becoming targets of official harassment and persecution. Nikitin's home and office are bugged, his car is routinely followed and vandalized and his lawyers suffer continued harassment from the Russian secret police. Because he wrote two chapters in a report documenting the dangers of radioactive pollution from a decaying nuclear submarine fleet in the North Sea. Amnesty International and the U.S. State Department agree the report contained material easily garnered from open sources.
Environmental openness is an inalienable human right.
Any attempt to conceal any information about harmful impacts on people and the environment is a crime against humanity. China Large-scale development projects such as the Three Gorges Dam and the World Bank's Western Poverty Reduction Project could have serious environmental consequences. China's environmental and human rights activists continue to be harassed and detained, and face grave risks to their safety and personal freedom when they speak out against such projects. The Three Gorges Dam project will drown many villages located along the Yangtze River in China. Indigenous people, like the little girl pictured above, are being relocated before their homes are flooded.