Rights activists appeal to Medvedev: keep your promise to restore justice in Russia, and make a start by freeing political prisoners.

On Wednesday an appeal by Russian rights activists and public figures was delivered to the reception of the President of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Medvedev.

An open letter to the Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev

Mr President,

During the election campaign you repeatedly said how important the primacy of law is for Russia. We could not help noticing your words, since they correspond with our own sense of priorities.
It is our deep conviction that politically motivated criminal investigations and politically motivated court sentences are in glaring contradiction with the primacy of law. That is why we are calling on you to pardon those who, in our opinion, have become the victims of politically motivated prosecutions, and to do all in your power to ensure that they are freed.
As a first step we call on you to pardon the following citizens of the Russian Federation:

Valentin V. Danilov, sentenced under Article 275 (High Treason) of the Criminal Code to 13 years imprisonment;

Igor V. Sutyagin, sentenced under Article 275 (High Treason) of the Criminal Code to 15 years imprisonment;

Igor A. Reshetin, a member of the Academy of Cosmonautics, general director of Tsniimash-Export Ltd, sentenced to 11.5 years imprisonment (strict regime), also his deputy Alexander Rozhkin, chief economist Sergei Vizir and a section head at Tsniimash Mikhail Ivanov, who were given sentences ranging from 5 to 11 years imprisonment;

Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, sentenced to 8 years imprisonment;

Platon L. Lebedev, sentenced to 8 years imprisonment;

Alexei V. Pichugin, sentenced to life imprisonment;

Vasily G. Aleksanyan, vice president of Yukos. On 7 April 2006 the Simonovsky district court gave the Prosecutor General's office permission to detain Aleksanyan who was charged under two Articles of the Criminal Code: misappropriation (160) and legalisation of criminally-acquired property (174). He is now under guard in hospital;

Svetlana P. Bakhmina, deputy head of the Yukos legal department, arrested on 7 December 2004. Sentenced to 8 years imprisonment;

Rustem I. Shaidullin, b. 1987, Tatarstan, third-year student at the lyceum in the town of Aznakaevo, where he was born. Sentenced in 2006 to 6 years imprisonment as part of the Islamic Djamaat “case” — in essence for attending an out-of-town picnic with young Muslims;

Zara Murtazalieva, b. 1983, insurance saleswoman, third-year student of the Linguistic university in Pyatigorsk, born in the Naur district of Chechnya. Detained on 4 March 2004 in Moscow and sentenced to 8.5 years imprisonment , supposedly for intending to carry out a terrorist act;

Zaurbek Yu. Talkhigov, b. 1977 in Shali, Checheno-Ingush republic; sentenced to 8.5 years imprisonment for attempting to help free the hostages at the Dubrovka theatre siege in October 2002.

Russian legislation permits the President to pardon a prisoner without demanding that he or she admit their guilt.
We are familiar with the circumstances of the prosecution of each of the listed prisoners and have serious grounds for asserting that their prosecution was determined by political considerations.
We have given a far from complete list of Russia’s political prisoners, choosing those who are serving the longest sentences and whose prosecution has stirred the greatest public response. Obviously, some now in prison have not been included in the list, though we also consider them political prisoners, in particular members of the Other Russia coalition (14 persons at present), a number of businessmen and certain others.
We hope that pardons will also be extended to them.
By beginning your term of office with a pardon for political prisoners, Mr President, you will open a new page in Russian history, restoring the hopes for an independent judiciary that is so lacking in Russia.

Lyudmila Alexeyeva, Moscow Helsinki Group
Svetlana Gannushkina, the Civil Support Committee
Sergei Kovalyov, the Andrei Sakharov Fund
Lev Ponomaryov, the Movement for Human Rights
Yury Ryzhov, Russian Academy of Sciences
Yury Samodurov, Andrei Sakharov Museum and Public Centre
Alexei Simonov, Glasnost Defence Foundation
Ernst Cherny, Public Committee in Defence of Scientists
Gleb Yakunin, Committee in Defence of Freedom of Conscience
The petition is also supported by:
Nikita Belykh, Union of Right Forces
Vaclav Havel, former president of Czechoslovakia, Nobel laureate
Andre Glucksman, philosopher
Rudolf Bindig, honorary member of PACE and former Bundestag deputy

On 22 May Lord Frank Judd added his name to the petition.

(www.zaprava.ru)