Vera Vasilyeva reports in full on Sunday’s rally in Moscow in support of political prisoners.

Vera Vasilyeva, Human Rights in Russia (www.hro1.org), 18.02.2008

On 17 February a rally was held on Slavyanskaya Square in central Moscow, with the slogans “Free Vasily Aleksanyan! Free political prisoners!” About 150 attended. Also present were several dozen journalists and more than six hundred employees of various law-enforcement agencies.

The security measures were strictly enforced. Every person attending the rally had first to be checked by a metal detector and show the contents of his or her bag to a policeman. As was immediately apparent, the police and other agencies outnumbered those protesting.

There were units of soldiers from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, criminal squad detectives and riot police (OMON). They formed a tight cordon around the edge of the square and also occupied all underground passageways leading from the Kitai-gorod metro station, at the north and south ends of the square. Others brought in to help them could be distinguished from plainclothes police by their red armbands, carrying the word “public order volunteer” (DND).

Moscow was under siege, it appeared. Earlier Radio Liberty reported that thirty vehicles carrying riot police and the internal affairs soldiers stood nearby at Pushkin Square. Another five police buses were further away, at Triumphalnaya (formerly Mayakovsky) Square. The city police department said the election campaign explained the extra measures and assured me that such a “reserve” was always put on duty at the weekend in case large crowds developed in any point. It had nothing to do with the rally, they insisted.

Among those taking part in the Slavyanskaya Square demonstration were the For Human Rights organisation, the Free Radicals, Defence, the United Civil Front and the Committee for Anti-war Activities. Individuals who sympathised with the rally’s aims, young people and those of pensionable age, were also present from every generation.

The participants hung their placards on the railings and walls and held up posters reading: “Free political prisoners!”, “The torturers are deaf, they can’t hear”, and “An end to these cannibal ways – free Vasily Aleksanyan!” Many carried portraits of other Yukos prisoners: Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Platon Lebedev, Alexei Pichugin (that poster read, “Libelled by the State”), Vasily Aleksanyan and Svetlana Bakhmina. Members of the National Bolshevik Party, led by Eduard Limonov, held up photos of their comrades who are now in prison. Speakers poured out the music of Vladimir Vysotsky and the rock group DDT.

The first to speak was Mikhail Kriger of the Committee for Anti-War Activities. The re-appearance of political prisoners in Russia shamed our country, he said. All those who spoke shared his opinion. Lev Ponomaryov (Ponomarev) of For Human Rights drew a parallel with Castro’s Cuba where, according to his information, seven political prisoners were recently freed. “There are about seventy such prisoners in Russia and our president has a unique opportunity to end his term in office by performing a good deed,” commented Ponomaryov. “Don’t you believe that he will free our political prisoners?” he asked the demonstrators. “No!” they cried. “Well, let’s give the head of state a chance,” said Ponomaryov.

Among those imprisoned for their political views and activities, speakers also named journalist Boris Stomakhin, the scientists Valentin Danilov and Igor Sutyagin, and Zaurbek Talkhigov and Zaru Murtazaliev who are both Chechen.

Anna Karetnikova’s remarks were supported by Yelena Sannikova, who was imprisoned by the Soviet authorities in the early 1980s. “We shall not ask who is more of a political prisoner than another,” she said, calling on everyone to show solidarity and defend the civil rights of all the prisoners.

Among those taking part were other former political prisoners — Pyotr Starchik, Kirill Podrabinek and Vladimir Shaklein — and the lawyers for Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Platon Lebedev, Karinna Moskalenko and Yelena Liptser. Kirill Podrabinek reminded his listeners that the arbitrary behaviour of prison officials also affected the ordinary inmates of the country’s many penal colonies, remand centres and prisons. This should this be overlooked either.

Those protesting were few in number, perhaps, but more than made up for it by the vigour with which they periodically chanted, “Free political prisoners!” Karinna Moskalenko expressed her certainty that there were many more people in Moscow and across the country who sympathised with the rally’s aims and objectives. She promised to tell her client, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, about the day’s events.

The meeting concluded with a resolution:

“We are not satisfied that it took a campaign in the media and active public pressure on the authorities for them to do what they should have done long before: transfer the terminally ill Vasily Aleksanyan to a specialist clinic. The authorities are obliged to act in accordance with the law, without public scandals or intervention by the European Parliament, and to do so as part of its daily business. Investigators have no right to extract testimony under the threat of repressive measures and torture – by refusing a gravely ill man medical treatment. Someone under investigation should not be held behind bars unless he or she has committed a serious crime against the person ...

“We demand that the prosecutor’s office look into the actions of the investigator who tried to use Aleksanyan’s illness to blackmail him, offering life and freedom in exchange for perjury.

“We demand that the prosecutor’s office look into the actions of the prison staff who were obliged to transfer Aleksanyan to a hospital the moment he had received his fatal diagnosis.

“We demand a response from the Russian judicial system. On what grounds does Vasily Aleksanyan remain in custody and why has he still not been released?

“As citizens of Russia, we are not in agreement with the cruel policy of the country’s present authorities. Terror and violence are not methods of administration. We oppose the ideology of cruelty, indifference and fear that is forced on us by our country’s present rulers. We protest against the restoration of totalitarianism in Russia.

“We want to see a revival of humane behaviour, benevolence and compassion, in both Russian society and the hearts of our fellow citizens!”