An appeal in defence of Vasily Aleksanyan has been handed to Dmitry Medvedev.

On Sunday, 25 March, a public appeal carrying over four hundred signatures was handed in at the presidential reception on Moscow’s Novaya Square requesting that the president-elect “move swiftly to ensure the rapid release from detention of Vasily Aleksanyan, in view of his grave and incurable illness.”

From 17 March the website Human Rights Online (www.hro.org) invited all to sign the petition and within five days 450 people had added their signatures, among them Elena Bonner, Ludmila Alexeyeva, Andrei Bitov and Vladimir Kara-Murza.

The appeal focused attention, in particular, on a government decree No 54 of 6 February 2004, “Concerning the medical attestation of prisoners put forward for release on grounds of their illness”. In accordance with that official document Vasily Aleksanyan should be freed from serving any sentence involving detention, if convicted. Those adding their names to the appeal considered that it contradicted both logic and common sense to punish such a gravely ill man who has not yet come to trial more severely than if he had already been convicted and sentenced.

The appeal was delivered to the presidential reception on Novaya Square by the human rights activists Yelena Sannikova and Tatyana Monakhova. They were told to expect a reply within ten days.