18 April 2005, 14:06
Antiwar picket banned in St Petersburg
The picket against war in Chechnya appointed on 17 April in St Petersburg, one in a series of such pickets held by the Antiwar Committee on Sundays at Nevskii Avenue at Malaya Koniushennaya Street, was banned by the central district administration. The official ground was that the notification about the picket lodged with the district administration did not mention the persons responsible for holding the picket and "how the organisers were going to ensure public order" during the action, AWC activist Alexander Yermakov told Caucasian Knot.
Yermakov mentioned the notification was written using a template officials had not previously found faults with. Meanwhile, the authorities expressed an oral wish that the picket should be moved up Malaya Koniushennaya Street.
This is not their first attempt to have the inconvenient picket "out of sight," Irina Flinge, director of St Petersburg's Memorial Science and Information Centre, told Caucasian Knot by phone.
Author: Vyacheslav Feraposhkin, CK correspondent
