From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng (Original Message) Sent: 8/25/2005 7:26 AM
Russia Activists Call for Silent Protest
By STEVE GUTTERMAN : Associated Press Writer Aug 24, 2005 : 10:18 pm ET
MOSCOW -- A group of prominent Russian rights activists held a demonstration Wednesday outside the prison that holds the imprisoned tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who says he has gone on a hunger strike.
About 70 people took part in what was billed as a silent protest, some holding posters or wearing T-shirts calling for the release of Khodorkovsky and his business partner Platon Lebedev. Both were sentenced in May to nine years in prison for fraud and tax evasion.
The demonstration was organized by six activists including Lyudmila Alexeyeva, head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, and Sergei Kovalyov, a Soviet-era dissident and political prisoner who has fiercely opposed Russia's war in Chechnya.
"Everyone to whom human dignity is dear and who has time to support it today, let us stand next to the prison so that everyone will know that the fate of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev continues to stir the conscience of Russia's citizens," the activists said.
The protesters, also including the former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, dispersed peacefully after about an hour.
In a statement delivered through his lawyers, Khodorkovsky said Tuesday that he was on a hunger strike to protest Lebedev's transfer Friday to a tiny isolation cell. Russian news agencies have quoted prison system officials as saying Lebedev was put in the cell for seven days.
Lebedev's lawyers have said he is ill, and that the cell he was moved to is almost filled by a bed that swings up in the morning, allowing him only to stand or sit on the floor. Russian media have cited jail officials as saying Lebedev was moved because he was refusing to take daily exercise walks outdoors, but his lawyers said the walks were not mandatory.
The statement Tuesday quoted Khodorkovsky as saying he believed Lebedev was placed in isolation in a Kremlin-ordered punishment for Khodorkovsky's criticism in articles and interviews from jail. Khodorkovsky recently said he was considering running for a parliament seat in an upcoming by-election.
The closely watched trial of Khodorkovsky and Lebedev -- both major shareholders in the oil company Yukos, which Khodorkovsky founded and before his October 2003 arrest -- was widely viewed as part of a Kremlin-directed campaign to punish him for funding opposition parties and to impede his presumed personal political ambitions.
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