Rally held in Moscow on the Day of Political Prisoners

On October 30, the Day of Political Prisoners, Moscow held a rally in defence of victims of political prosecutions in Russia. Despite cold weather, over two hundred persons came to take part in the event. The protesters demanded to immediately release the "prisoners of conscience" and reconsider the cases of all political prisoners.

Among those, whom the organizers of action treat as political prisoners, are the following persons: natives of Chechnya Zara Murtazalieva, Zaurbek Talkhigov, Umar Batukaev and Lors Khamiev; officer Sergey Arakcheev who fought in Chechnya; Krasnodar journalist Sergey Rozhkov; leader of the Rostov Regional UCF Branch Andrei Grekov; Mikhail Klevachov and Vladimir Vlasov, convicted for undermining "Grozny-Moscow" train; and journalist of the Chechen separatists' website "Kavkaz-Centre" Boris Stomakhin.

"Ten years ago the Russian human rights movement understood that, alas, it was time to return the notion of 'political prisoner'. In recent years, Russia has obtained more political prisoners than it had in Brezhnev's time," Lev Ponomaryov, leader of the All-Russian Movement "For Human Rights", said to the rally.

The participants of the action also recollected prisoners of Soviet camps, victims of Stalin's terror, and dissidents who fought for freedom in the period of "zastoy" (stagnation); but they spoke more about today's political prisoners, saying that anyone who has "crossed the road before the authorities or special agencies" can become such.