Tuesday’s rally on New Pushkin Square in Moscow continued the campaign by rights activists and public figures begun by their letter to President Medvedev.

Those taking part were from Memorial, the For Human Rights movement, the Union of Right Forces (Moscow branch), the United Civil Front, Protos, groups such Oborona, Smena, the Committee for Anti-Military Actions and other public bodies.

There was an attempt to disrupt the event from the very beginning by aggressive young people who tried to shout down the speakers and threw around leaflets of the pro-Putin Molodaya gvardiya (Young Guard) movement. Those at the rally decided to pay no attention to this provocative behaviour and they soon quietened down.

Among the speakers were: Ernst Cherny of the Committee in Defence of Scientists; Ivan Starikov of the Russian People’s Democratic Union; Lev Ponomaryov, director of the For Human Rights movement; the poetess Natella Boltyanskaya; and spokesmen and women for Oborona, Protos, the Avant-garde of Red Youth and the National Bolsheviks. Yury Samodurov, director of the Andrei Sakharov Museum and Centre, Sergei Kovalyov, chairman of the Andrei Sakharov Fund, Anna Karetnikova and Mikhail Kriger of the anti-military movement and many others attended the rally.

The subject of political prisoners brought together the most varied group of people. Each speaker told about his friends, relatives or colleagues who had become political prisoners or of the prisoners he or she was trying to defend. There was mention of the scientists Igor Sutyagin and Valentin Danilov, who were victims of the spy-mania of the security services. Others recalled Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Platon Lebedev and Alexei Pichugin, leading figures in the Yukos affair. Some referred to the student Zara Murtazalieva and many others.

“As participants of this rally in defence of political prisoners, we are forced to admit and proclaim that the Russian authorities have reverted, in the 21st century, to repressing its political opponents by extra-judicial means and through manipulating the courts, which are not free,” reads the declaration adopted by the meeting. “The existence of political prisoners in Russia is our common pain and misfortune; it is our duty to support them. As long as a single person remains imprisoned for political reasons our struggle will not end.”

Vera Vasilyeva, Human Rights in Russia portal, 10.06.2008

Photo on home page from Grani.ru. Photo on this page from Gazeta.ru