7th April a rally in memory of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who perished exactly six months ago, was held in the center of Moscow. Participants of the rally recalled all journalists killed in post-Soviet the Russian Federation and they also demanded a stop to persecutions of political prisoners and to violence in the Chechen Republic. (14-APR-07)

Text: HRH/Moscow, by Yanina Savenko. Sources: svobodanews.ru, demos-center.ru. Photos: marshpamyati.org

A few hundred people, including well-known human rights activists, gathered at Novo-Pushkin Square (one of the central and most popular places of the capital). The movement “For Human Rights”, the Public Committee for Defense of Mikhail Trepashkin, the Moscow Helsinki Group (member of the Russian Research Center for Human Rights) and other human rights organizations organized the rally. With Mozart’s “Requiem” being played and funeral candles lit in front of Anna Politkovskaya’s portrait; demonstrators remembered her, Larisa Udina, Dmitry Kholodov, Vlad Listyev and other perished journalists

Anniversary of mass murder of peaceful citizens in Chechen village Samashki
Meanwhile, the participants of the rally spoke about victims of Samashki village massacre. On April 7th and 8th 1995 federal troops and policemen launched a “cleansing” operation in the village in order to detain terrorists and find arms. During the operation they killed civilians, tortured detainees and burnt the houses down. More than 100 unarmed villagers perished then. “We came here because we remember the tragic events in Samashki and also because completely innocent people are being kept in prisons. All these things are consequences of the political system created in Russia”, said leader of the “Yabloko” party Grigory Yavlinskiy. Encouraging his speech, activists of the Anti-War Club unfurled flags with slogans “Stop the Chechen War”.

Jubilee behind bars 
Also, on the same day political prisoner Mikhail Trepashkin, a former FSC Mikhail Trepashkin(Federal Security Service) agent celebrated his 50th birthday. A suit was fabricated against Mikhail Trepashkin when he, together with a few colleagues, including Alexander Litvinenko, announced that leaders of FSC had ordered them to kill Boris Berezovskiy. After this incident Trepashkin gave up his work in the FSC and worked as a lawyer, investigating explosions in the Moscow’s apartment buildings in 1999. In 2002 Trepashkin was accused “of revealing state secrets” and in 2004 he was given a 4-year sentence.  “Let us wish him health and strength to endure his trials. We wish him to be able to hold out till the end of the imprisonment term”, said Mikhail Krieger, coordinator of the Anti-War Club. Additionally, activists of the Anti-War Club wrote a statement in defense of Mikhail Trepashkin, which was signed by many participants of the rally. Unfortunately, numerous previous open letters with demands to release Trepashkin went without response. 

Impunity of violence
candlesLeader of Yabloko party Grigory Yavlinskiy drew attention to the fact that political assassinations of Holodov, Listiev, Politkovskaya and others remained unsolved. The participants of the rally, also, appealed to the Moscow authorities to name one of the city’s streets “Avenue of the Perished Journalists”. Leader of the Russian PEN-Center, poet Alexander Tkachenko recited a poem in memory of Anna Politkovskaya:

Your heart is beating more loudly for the past six months
You are walking under the earth, on the grass and in the sky for six months
And you don’t hear breath of the hound dogs behind you
Only silence, true stories, tall tales and six months divide us.
Anna, say! Isn’t it terrifying to be killed in the center of Moscow?