From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng (Original Message) Sent: 4/23/2007 2:16 AM
Moscow policemen detain a young radical protester on Sunday, photo from Lenta.ru web-site Moscow policemen detain a young radical protester on Sunday, photo
from Lenta.ru web-site Rights Activists Report New Detentions Over Moscow Street Protests
23.04.2007
MosNews
Moscow police on Sunday arrested five civil rights activists taking part in a public stroll in the same areas where a week earlier police had attacked and arrested demonstrators, the DPA news agency reported.
Around two dozen persons followed a call by civil rights groups simply to take a stroll in central Moscow in the areas where a week earlier special OMON police forces, using batons, charged and beat up marchers in a protest demonstration against President Vladimir Putin.
Lyudmila Alexeyeva, chairwoman of the Moscow branch of the Helsinki Group human rights organisation, criticized the arrests on Sunday as the “crudest violation of human rights. ”
She noted that the participants on Sunday were neither carrying any posters nor chanting any slogans.
“Apparently you can no longer even take a stroll,” Alexeyeva said.
In a related development, the human rights representative for Putin, Ella Pamfilova, demanded the resignation of Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev over the previous week’s violent police action against the anti-Putin demonstrators in Moscow and St. Petersburg.
“It was simply ugly the way the policemen behaved,” Pamfilova said. Every person had the right to express his political opinion.
That comment contrasted with that of a Nurgaliyev spokesman who said that the police had behaved in a manner “appropriate to the situation. ” The Interior Ministry view was that the demonstrators tried to provoke the police.
The developments came a day after Russia’s public prosecutor’s office began examining the legality of the arrest of former world chess champion Garry Kasparov during the previous week’s protests in Moscow and St Petersburg.
Kasparov was on Friday interrogated by the Russian secret service FSB. A spokeswoman for Kasparov said they were investigating whether the leader of the United Civil Front had publicly called for extremist action.
Liberal Duma member Vladimir Ryshkov had pressed for the meeting of opposition politician Kasparov with the judiciary, which took place in Moscow on Saturday.
Ryshkov also asked the public prosecution to examine complaints by numerous other demonstrators who had been arrested or beaten by the police, Echo Moskwy radio reported.
Kasparov, one of the organizers of last week’s opposition demonstrations, had been arrested at the opening of the rally for allegedly “openly provocative acts. ”
Kasparov himself claimed after his arrest that he had not been breaking the law.
The former world chess champion was only released several hours later.
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