Today in Moscow’s New Pushkin square a demonstration took place in defence of Vasily Aleksanyan. The demonstrators demanded immediate medical care for a sick man and to release him from custody. The authorities’ means of dealing with Vasily Aleksanyan were referred to as Gestapo methods. .

The writer, Viktor Shenderovich, who was at New Pushkin square told the publication ‘The New Times’ that it’s no longer a political matter, ‘it’s an anthropological matter’, which shows the degradation of mankind. ‘The Simonovsky court and the Supreme Court don’t care about their reputation and I don’t know how they can sleep at night.

The poet, Igor Irtenev, noted that the authorities’ actions in the Aleksanyan case had gone too far with their cynicism and rascal-methods. Irtenev said that not even during Communism did it go this far because then everything was dealt with discreetly. But now it was all in the open thanks to television and the Internet.

He added that today ‘I have even fewer illusion about our future and very sad prospects regarding our civil society’.

Support demonstrations for Vasily Aleksanyan took place today in Yekaterinburg. Eight individual protests took place in various parts of the city. Protestors demand Aleksanyan’s release and that he should get complete medical care.