Last week, several human rights NGOs and well-known individual human rights defenders demonstrated against the recent attempts to silence the Nizhny-Novgorod-based NGO Russian-Chechen Friendship Society (RCFS). www.humanrightshouse.org has received RCFS?s own newsletter report and numerous pictures of the demonstration. read the report and see the pictures below. (10-OCT-05)
Unless otherwise stated, the pictures have been released by Lenta.ru.
This acticle was written by editor in Chief Stanislav Dmitrievskiy and editor of this release is Oksana Chelysheva
On 6 October 2005 from 1 until 2 pm a rally was held in Moscow to express support and solidarity with the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society. The rally was held at the building of the Federal Tax Service of the Russian Federation, situated in Neglinnaya Street. The rally was organized by some human rights organizations under the slogan ?We are protesting against harassment of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society?. More than fifty people of different nationalities, including Russians, Chechens and representatives frm other countries as well took part in the rally. They represented such human rights organizations as Civil Assistance, Moscow Helsinki Group, Memorial human rights society, the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society, Demos center, Amnesty International, For Human Rights movement, Prague Watchdog and others. Such well-known Russian journalists and human rights people as Lyudmila Alekseeva, Anna Politkovskaya, Sergey Kovalyov, Valentin Gefter, Yury Samodurov, Lev Ponomaryov participated in the rally. The militia and Federal Tax Service guards checked that the rally had been authorized by the authorities, Since it was, they did not intervene. The participants of the rally distributed ?Pravo-zaschita,? a joint edition of the newspaper of RCFS and Nizhny Novgorod Region Society for Human Rights. The issue is devoted to the memory of the president of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, Aslan Maskhadov. Some passers-by expressed their support with the participants of the rally. The militia servicemen refused to read the newspaper. A number of officials of the Federal Tax Service came out of the building and asked the participants of the rally whether they had received ?their hundred rubles? from the organizers of the rally.
See pictures taken during the rally in Moscow below.
The publication of this release was made possible by the European Union within the framework of the project ?Open information about the Chechen Republic in the name of peace and human rights: Russian- Chechen Information Agency? and The National Endowment for Democracy within the framework of the program ?Russian-Chechen Information Partnership?.
Sergei Kovalev, dissident and former ombudsman for human rights in the Russian Federation. Behind him director Sergei Nikitin, from Amnesty International the Russian Federation.
At opposite ends of the banner, Tatiana Nikolaevna Banina of the Russian-Chechen Friendship Society and Alexandra Wacko, a Norwegian intern at RCFS, whose one-month stay in Russia has been sponsored by the Norwegian Helinki Committee. Photo: Maria Paramanova
?Criminal authorities – criminal decisions? reads the banner, clearly referring to Russian authorities? arrest of Stanislav Dmitrievski and their attempts to silence RCFS.
Reunited: Tatiana Nikolaevna Banina of RCFS and Maria Paramanova, Network Contact Person at the Moscow Human Rights House, meeting again for the first time since they both participated at HRH?s recent conference, workshops and annual network meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Lev Panomarev of the organisation For Human Rights.
Two members of Moscow Helsinki Committee, Lev Panomarev of For Human Rights and Anna Politkovskaya, one of the most outspoken journalists in the Russian Federation, working for the newspaper Novaya Gazeta, and particularly famous for her coverage of the Chechen crisis and the Moscow Helsinki Committee.
