From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng  (Original Message)    Sent: 4/23/2007 1:58 AM
Friday, April 20, 2007
March Victims Speak Out

By Galina Stolyarova

Staff Writer

Valery Zhelanov fought back tears as he watched amateur footage of OMON riot police kicking a young man as they dragged him to a police car. The victim is Zhelanov’s son Artyom, a political science student, who went to watch the Dissenters’ March on Sunday because of his academic interest in democratic protest.

But, says Zhelanov, Artyom was suddenly grabbed and assaulted by officers. Held overnight, he appeared in court on Monday, and was ordered to pay a fine for “shouting obscenities” and then released.

Artyom Zhelanov was among 120 people who are reported to have been detained by police during the protest demonstration organized by The Other Russia coalition last Sunday.

Police violence against the protesters and bystanders during last weekend’s opposition rallies made international headlines and drew criticism from foreign governments.

Russia’s ombudsman Vladimir Lukin has said he is ready to stand up for the rights of those who were targeted in opposition protests in Moscow and St. Petersburg last weekend.

Lukin said TV reports and pictures left him under the impression that there had been instances of police “seriously exceeding” their powers in dispersing the St. Petersburg rally on Sunday.

“I could see that blood had been shed on the streets,” Lukin said. “Fortunately there were no irreversible incidents.”

The State Russian Duma is creating a special commission to investigate the allegations. The commission is due to start work on April 24 but United Russia leader Boris Gryzlov has already made it clear that march organizers will be looked at more closely than the police.

“We must find out who masterminds these provocations, and who pays for them,” Gryzlov said.

The pictures of the incident involving Artyom Zhelanov were taken with a mobile phone.

“It was horrendous violence. When I first saw the footage, my mind just refused to accept it, so revoltingly brutal was it,” Valery Zhelanov said. “I stared at the timer blinking on the screen and only slowly came to realize that it was all for real.”

Opposition leaders expressed worries about the fate of future civil protests in Russia in the light of what they say is escalating violence by law enforcement officials.

Andrei Dmitriyev, leader of the National Bolsheviks in St. Petersburg called the police action on Sunday “a well-planned special military operation against a chosen target.”

“The violence is getting worse. This time the police did not hesitate to shed blood and beat defenceless women and feeble elderly people,” he said. “National Bolshevik member Olga Zhukova is now recovering from a huge wound covering her entire forehead after she was smashed in the face with a truncheon by riot police at the rally. A Yabloko member, environmentalist Olga Tsepilova ended up in hospital with a broken nose and a concussion.”

Two more protesters, Maria Sheina and her husband Boris, say they went to the rally on Sunday with a peaceful poster. It called for an end to what is known as in-fill construction in St. Petersburg — the practice of building new developments in small spaces between existing buildings — which is threatening a courtyard near their home at Ulitsa Nakhimova in the Primorsky district.

“We have never really been too much into politics,” says Sheina. “We decided to join the rally just because we feel the city’s precious historical landscape is changing for the worse, and also because construction projects are done carelessly. In our courtyard, an unattended crane is looming over a school.”

When the meeting ended and the crowd started to disperse, Maria and Boris received a phone call from their son Nikolai who was heading to the area to meet them. The next phone call came from a police truck. He had been detained on his way to meet them.

“We found our son in one of the police buses, and were allowed to get on,” Sheina recalls. “But when we tried to get off, one security guard kicked my husband very hard in the knee. Boris crawled and cried for help but even when we got to the police station they refused to send for an ambulance.”

Boris Shein, who is currently receiving treatment at the Mariinskaya hospital, had apparently suffered a broken artery. An ambulance was called for him after the intervention of a lawyer, provided by Sergei Gulyayev, local coordinator of The Other Russia Coalition.

Maxim Reznik, head of the St. Petersburg branch of the liberal Yabloko party, says that those detained at the rally were all charged either with “shouting obscenities” or “obstructing the police.”

“These charges were contrived,” he said. “The protest had been sanctioned by the authorities and went smoothly. The police provoked the violence themselves.”

“After the meeting ended, they closed the nearby metro station and besieged the area with buses and lines of police. When groups of people tried to find a way out of the circle — to use some form of public transport — the police branded it as a spontaneous demonstration and lashed out at everyone who had the misfortune to be around at that moment.”

The Other Russia says that more than 300 people were detained during the St. Petersburg rally.

“The police made out 120 charge sheets but many more people were diverted, beaten up, and then released without being formally charged, “ says Olga Kurnosova, leader of the St. Petersburg branch of Garry Kasparov’s United Civil Front.

“It was on the brink of becoming a massacre,” Kurnosova said. “There is only one thing left for the authorities to do — start shooting the protesters.”

Reznik said some evidence documenting unjustified use of force by the police has already been sent to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

“As soon as we gather new evidence we will send it along without delay,” he added. “Human rights advocates in Moscow promised to urge the court to review these cases as soon as possible.”

Reznik stressed it is the duty of the police to keep the peace and to guarantee the security of those attending rallies and processions.

“Police law stipulates that they must not take any action that threatens the lives or health of people, both participants in such events and passersby,” he said.

However Russia’s Prosecutor General, Yury Chaika, said on Tuesday he had “no evidence of the police exceeding their duties or breaking any laws” during the opposition rallies in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

The police in both cities issued statements to the media insisting that all their actions had been justified.

“At the end of the meeting, a group of approximately 150 people tried to hold an illegal meeting and break through police cordons, despite repeated warnings,” reads a statement released by the St. Petersburg police this week.

The St. Petersburg Prosecutor’s Office on Thursday acknowledged receiving one complaint, which they said will be reviewed in due course.

Governor Valentina Matviyenko has ordered a special investigation to be held into the allegations of physical abuse and violations of people’s rights at the St. Petersburg demonstration. Talking to reporters on Thursday, Matviyenko refrained from giving what she called “an emotional response to the events” and claimed she “has always opposed violence” and considers it “unacceptable.” But protest leaders say they have little confidence in such official responses.

“The history of our fruitless appeals to the prosecutor’s office in various cases is discouraging,” Kurnosova said. “The prosecutors ignore the Russian Constitution and resort to the most absurd tricks, going to any lengths to help the authorities evade justice.”

Valery Zhelanov, whose son’s violent arrest was caught in cell phone images, says he has made repeated phone calls to City Hall about the incident.

“They would not listen to me, and said I called the wrong place,” he said. “The clerks there would not even give me any advice whatsoever, and showed absolutely no compassion.”

Opposition activists say that a telephone hotline they have set up has been extremely busy with calls of support, and that those who suffered in the violence on Sunday are determined to take part in the next rally — and to bring their friends.

“I showed the video at work, and it was enough for my colleagues to make a decision: next time we all will be there,” Zhelanov said. “We need to be out there for our children to protect them.”

Despite fears about the future and a lack of confidence in the authorities, Andrei Zykov, a senior serious crime investigator with the St. Petersburg Prosecutor’s Office said inquiries into the conduct of law enforcement officers and into allegations of ill-treatment of opposition supporters will be launched.

“I already have enough evidence to prove that the detention of Olga Kurnosova herself — in connection with producing and distributing propaganda material for the rally — was illegal,” Zykov said.

“She was stopped at the door of her apartment building and was taken into police custody without an official written order to that effect. And such an order could only have been issued if there had been two previous requests for her to report to police and she had ignored them.”

http://www.sptimesrussia.com/index.php?action_id=2&story_id=21382