Since city authorities refused to grant organizers a permit to hold the rally, police cordoned off Moscow’s Pushkin Square to prevent protesters from gathering. However, the approximately 1000 people who showed up in spite of the ban were allowed to enter the square after passing through a police inspection point.

After being denied their permit, rally organizers said they were reclassifying the rally as a public meeting with State Duma Deputy Ilya Ponomarev from the A Just Russia party, who is also a member of Udaltsov’s Left Front movement. Speaking to the crowd, Ponomarev addressed the issue of political prisoners in Russia.

“Today in Russia there are around several thousand political prisoners. These people are persecuted under administrative and criminal charges, although it’s obvious that the motives for the persecution are purely political,” Ponomarev said.

He added that while prisoners such as Udaltsov and Mikhail Khodorkovsky are widely known, the vast majority of persecuted individuals receive little or no publicity.

While organizers asked ralliers to leave politically-charged posters at home to keep police interference at a minimum, a number of activists came armed with banners and prominently displayed them to the press. The police, however, did nothing in response.

Rallies in support of Udaltsov, who has been on a dry hunger strike for nearly a month, are being held all across Russia.

On December 25, Moscow’s Tverskoy Regional Court sentenced Udaltsov to a third prison sentence of ten days, this time for disobeying police orders at a rally back in October. Earlier in the month he was convicted of “jaywalking.”

The opposition leader made the remarks at a conference on May 20 in Moscow, in honor of what would have been the dissident’s 90th birthday.

“Of course, many of Sakharov’s ideas were naive; for example, his constitution project that suggested Russia be divided into a multitude of confederations. And it’s unclear whether or not they were effective,” Kasparov said. “But the important thing is that he put human life and the idea of humanism higher than anything else.”

He also noted that it’s difficult to say whether Sakharov “won” or “lost,” although his ideas, in Kasparov’s opinion, have been fully discredited.

“People trusted Sakharov and his ideas because he was prepared to risk and give up everything to defend them. And now his values are used as propaganda, including by light-fingered and politically unscrupulous people,” Kasparov said.

The opposition leader concluded that “Sakharov’s legacy must be cleansed of the tumors that have arisen in the past twenty years.”

In addition to the conference, events being held in honor of Sakharov’s birthday include an exhibit, an open-air concert in support of freedom and calling for political prisoners to be freed (the “Sakharovskaya Mayovka,” held annually), and a public lecture by French physicist André Neveu.

Igor Cherchenko, a member of Russia’s banned National Bolshevik Party, was detained after opening an exhibition of his works on Moscow’s Triumfalnaya Square entitled “My Northern Country.”

About fifteen other activists stood with the Cherchenko while a detachment of police detained him and another National Bolshevik, Dmitri Yelizarov.

The artist’s colleagues proceeded to move his paintings to the Sakharov Museum and Public Center, where a presentation of Cherchenko’s works was to be held that same day.

Cherchenko is not the first artist arrested in Russia while attempting to display his work. Aleksander Shchendov was detained and threatened by police when he tried to display a collage of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in a dress in Voronezh last June. Artem Loskutov, a leader of the underground art movement in Novosibirsk, was detained in May and charged with political extremism, as well as other charges he asserts are false.

Born in the Russian city of Vitebsk in 1973, Cherchenko has lived in Israel since 1990. He has frequently taken part in activist demonstrations with the aim of attracting attention toward political imprisonment. In December 2005, he chained himself to the gates of the Russian embassy in Tel Aviv to demand the release of political prisoners in Russia. The embassy later filed a complaint against the artist, accusing him of “the violation of state borders.”

Bakhmina’s case has received wide public attention, with public figures like human rights defender Yelena Bonner and former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev calling for her release. The complete petition follows below.

To read more about Bakhmina’s story, read an account by journalist Grigory Pasko.

–

Help Svetlana Bakhmina

Dear friends. Svetlana Bakhmina, a Yukos attorney, was recently refused parole for the last of many times. Svetlana has served four years in a Mordovian [prison] colony, which is more than half of the term she received under articles 160 and 198 of the Russian Criminal Code. She has left two boys at home: seven-year-old Fedya and eleven-year old Grisha. Svetlana is now pregnant, in her seventh month. Usually, even our own court, which isn’t always the most humane, agrees to parole in such cases or grants a postponement of the sentence until the children reach the age of majority. This time, something has broken. Reason, conscience, mercy have either bumped into the consecrated “Yukos affair,” or else these ideas simply aren’t frequent guests in the Zubovo-Polyanky court of Mordovia.

We can mourn, railing against the inhuman system in our kitchens, then just shrug our shoulders and continue living our lives, bringing up our children, working, having fun and just living with this. Or we can do something.

Let’s appeal to the president with a letter. Even if you didn’t vote for Dmitri Medvedev– he is the president of our country, and he has the constitutional right to pardon Svetlana.

An Appeal to the President of the Russian Federation

Esteemed Dmitri Anatolyevich!

We ask you to get involved in the situation which former Yukos lawyer Svetlana Bakhmina, convicted for six and a half years incarceration, has ended up in.

Half of Bakhmina’s sentence was concluded as far back as May. This means she now has the right to parole. Those in the [prison] colony agree that she has earned it –and it’s written in her personal record. She only had reprimands at the very start of her term, and they have since been lifted. In their place there are commendations. Recently, the colony’s administration even granted her a leave.

Svetlana has two sons –one of them is seven, the other eleven. Also, she is pregnant and due to give birth in December. She is currently in the prison hospital. A court has twice refused to grant her parole…

Dmitri Anatolyevich, we understand that you cannot put pressure on the court. But you do have the right to pardon recorded in the Russian Constitution.

We, the undersigned, ask you to use this right.

You recently said, completely correctly, that signals are important in our country. We ask you, and this is very important, to pardon Svetlana, and give us the signal, to the whole country — “Citizens of Russia, civil servants, judges: be merciful, and don’t forget a person behind the letter of the law!”

The appeal can be signed on www.bakhmina.ru.

translation by theotherrussia.org

Prison authorities allege the Khodorkovsky broke the rules of receiving and exchanging letters, and claim that these violations allowed Esquire to publish a discussion between Khodorkovsky and author Boris Akunin.

Khodorkovsky’s defense, meanwhile, came out with a statement claiming the charges are false.  “Mikhail Khodorkovsky did not write or receive any “illegal” letters,” their statement reads, “so there is not a scrap of proof that he violated this ban [on letters].”

The legal team added that prisoners have a right to speak with their legal defenders.  Attorneys are allowed to read any documents to the prisoner, and write down what they consider important for the defense from the inmate’s responses.  Authorities from Russia’s prison service publicly admitted that this is the case as recently as 2004, and dozens of similarly published articles have appeared since then, the attorneys said.

In the coming week, Khodorkovsky was due to appear at an appeals trial to protest a decision to deny him early release on parole.  His defense thought the upcoming trial may have more to do with his isolation than any interview:  “Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s punishment over non-existent violations on the eve of a court session on the matter of his parole has already become an unkind tradition created by the prison administration,” his lawyers said.

The attorneys said they were considering launching a lawsuit against prison officials for “a series of similar suspicious and discriminatory acts relating to Khodorkovsky.”

In December 2006, new charges were filed against Mikhail Khodorkovsky and his partner Platon Lebedev.  The two were then transferred from the penal colony they was serving in to the China pre-trail detention center.  The second criminal case against the businessmen alleges that they laundered 450 billion rubles and 7.5 billion dollars in the period from 1998 to 2004.  “According to the investigation’s version of events, they stole all the oil extracted by Yukos,” said Yury Shmidt, one of Khodorkovsky’s lawyers.

Both Lebedev and Khodorkovsky maintain their innocence.

A group of the Yukos executive’s supporters have started a hunger strike (Rus) to protest his isolation.

Protest organizers have filed notices in Moscow, St. Petersburg, the Oryol oblast, the Vologda oblast, the Komi Republic, the Tver oblast, the Vladimir oblast, the Tomsk oblast, the Buryat Republic, the Ulyanovsk oblast, the Republic of Mordovia, and the Kurgan oblast. So far, only Oryol has granted a permit. Solitary pickets, which do not require notifying authorities, will be held in other regions.

Grekov, a UCF activist from the south-western city of Rostov-on-Don, was sentenced to two years in a penal colony on May 16th, after he was found guilty of illegally storing ammunition. On November 26th 2007, the opposition activist’s apartment was searched in line with an investigation of a local UCF leader, Boris Batya, who was accused of using pirated software. Officers claimed that they discovered cartridges in the apartment, and Grekov was subsequently arrested and tried. On July 19th, Grekov will celebrate his thirty-seventh birthday.

Valery Bychkov, the leader of the Penza branch of the UCF and a deputy in the Penza City Duma, is currently being held in a prison hospital, awaiting trial for failing to act out a court order. The case stems from 2006, when Bychkov raised questions about why public funds were being used to pay for the legal education of a local businessman, A.V. Yermin. Bychkov filed several inquiries to the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. A court found that these actions were an abuse of rank, and ordered Bychkov to apologize, which the opposition politician refused to do.

Bychkov then heard nothing about the affair until July 2nd 2008, when he was arrested at an area hospital where he was receiving care. The UCF leader was taken to a pre-trail detention center, and was then hospitalized in the clinic at a local prison colony.

Bychkov’s condition has apparently worsened in the prison hospital, and he has complained that necessary medications have not been provided. The opposition leader’s July 16th court hearing was interrupted several times, and the judge was forced called for an ambulance at two points.

Attached to the letter is a paper providing more detail (RUS) on the names mentioned in the letter. The open letter is currently gathering signatures online (RUS).

A complete translation follows.

–

An open appeal of human rights activists to Dmitri Medvedev

Mr. President!

During the presidential election campaign you repeatedly stressed how important the principles of rule of law were for Russia. We could not help but take notice of your words, which also correspond to what we view as a priority.

In our earnest conviction, politically motivated criminal prosecutions and politically motivated court sentences are in violent contrast with the the principle of rule of law.

This is precisely why we are calling on you to pardon those people, who became, in our opinion, the victims of politically motivated persecution, and to do all that is in your power to ensure that they are granted liberty.

As a first step, we call on you to pardon the following citizens of the Russian Federation:

Danilov, Valentin Vladimirovich. CC RF [Criminal Code of the Russian Federation] Article 275, sentenced to 13 years standard confinement regime. [Wikipedia entry on Danilov's case]

Sutyagin, Igor Vyacheslavovich, CC RF Article 275, sentenced to 15 years standard confinement regime. [Wikipedia entry on Sutyagin's case]

Reshetin, Igor Andreevich , academic of the Space Technology Academy, general director of the TsNIIMash-Export closed joint-stock company (sentenced to 11.5 years maximum security regime), his deputy chief of security Alexander Rozhkin, chief economist Sergei Vizir, and Mikhail Ivanov, the head of one of the departments of the TsNIIMAsh Federal State Unitary Enterprise – sentenced from 5 to 11 years incarceration. [Read more about the TsNIIMash case and its victims from the Novaya Gazeta (ENG)]

Khodorkovsky, Mikhail Borisovich, sentenced to 8 years incarceration in standard confinement.

Lebedev, Platon Leonidovich, sentenced to 8 years incarceration in standard confinement.

Pichugin, Aleksei Vladimirovich, sentenced to life imprisonment.

Aleksanyan, Vasily Georgievich, Executive Vice-President of YUKOS with presidential powers. On 04.06.2006 Moscow’s Simonov district court discerned material evidence of an offense in Vasily Aleksanyan’s actions, and gave consent to the Prosecutor-General’s Office to start a criminal prosecution of the Executive Vice-President. Later that same day, Vasily Aleksanyan was detained, and the Russian Federation’s Prosecutor-General’s Office charged him on two articles of the Criminal Code: legalization [or] money laundering (part 4 article 174.1) and appropriation or embezzlement, that is, stealing another’s property (article 160). On 04.07.2006 the Basmanny regional court sanctioned the arrest of Vasily Aleksanyan. He is currently hospitalized under guard.

Bakhmina, Svetlana Petrovna, a deputy chief of the Yukos legal department, arrested 12.07.2004. Sentenced to 8 years standard confinement regime.

Murtazalieva, Zara, born 1983, insurance broker, 3rd year student of the Linguistics University of Pyatigorsk, a native of the Naursky region of the Chechen Republic, was arrested March 4th 2004 in Moscow. Convicted of intending to commit a terrorist act, and sentenced to 8.5 years. [Read More about Murtazalieva's case from the Memorial Human Rights group]

Talkhigov, Zaurbek Yunusovich, born 1977, native of the village of Shali, in the Shali region of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Was sentenced to 8.5 years incarceration for attempting to aid in the release of hostages from the Theater Center at Dubrovka in October 2002. [Read more about Talkhigov's case from the Caucasian Knot / Memorial]

By Russian law, the President of the RF may pardon a prisoner without requiring him to admit his own guilt.

We are familiar with the prosecuting circumstances of every one of the listed prisoners, and have solid grounds to assert that political considerations determined their prosecutions.

We have brought forth a far from complete list of Russian political prisoners, selecting those that have the longest [prison] terms and whose prosecution received the greatest public attention. It is clear that other prisoners, who we consider to be political, did not make the list. In particular – members of the Other Russia coalition (at the present moment – 14 people), a series of businessmen, and others.

We hope that the procedure of pardon extends to them as well.

Mr. President, by starting your presidential term with the pardoning of political prisoners, you will open a new page in Russian history, restoring the hope of an independent judiciary, which is so lacking in Russia.

L.M. Alekseeva, Moscow Helsinki Group
S.A. Gannushkina, “Civil Assistance” Committee
S.A. Kovalev, A. Sakharov Foundation
L.A. Ponomarev, “For Human Rights” Movement
Yu.A. Ryzhkov, academic of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Yu.B. Samodurov, A. Sakharov Museum and Civic Center
A.K. Simonov, Glasnost Defense Foundation
E.I. Cherniy, Public Committee for the Protection of Scientists
G.P. Yakunin, Public Committee for the Protection of Freedom of Conscience

Appeal supported by:
N.Yu. Belykh, chairman of the federal political advisory committee of the Union of Right Forces party
Vaclav Havel, former president of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
Andre Glucksmann, philosopher
Rudolph Bindig, honorary member of the PACE, former deputy of the [German] Bundestag
Lord Frank Judd

Translated by theotherrussia.org.

The second attempt at parole by Igor Sutyagin, an imprisoned scientist serving time for “divulging state secrets,” has ended in a rebuff. The result of the appeal was revealed by the Public Committee for the Protection of Scientists and Sutyagin’s parents at a press-release in Moscow on October 29th.

The executive secretary of the committee, Ernst Cherniy, revealed that Vladimir Lukin, the commissioner for human rights in Russia, assisted in the preparations of Sutyagin’s defense. The appeal documents were finalized, when the attorneys learned that Sutyagin had been transferred to a building resembling solitary confinement.

Sutyagin’s mother was forlorn: “He could be benefiting Russia,” she said, “and not hauling wood shavings from the mill bench.” “It wasn’t he who was given 15 years, it was all of us who were given 105 years,” she said, describing the difficulty for the family. In her words, her son’s arrest broke the whole family apart. Sutyagin’s wife had trouble finding work, and his two grown daughters were deeply troubled.

Yuri Ryzhkov, an academic from the Russian Academy of Sciences declared: “Sutyagin was just unlucky, anyone could have found themselves in his place.” The scholar reminded the audience that in Putin’s Russia, more than one third of all government positions are staffed by current or former employees of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB). “In the very high posts are the very small-minded people,” he continued.

The case against Sutyagin began on November 3rd, 2003. The scientist, who was head of the subdivision for Military-Technical and Military-Economic Policy at the U.S. and Canada Institute at the Russian Academy of Sciences, was accused of relaying information, which constituted as state secrets, to representatives of a British consulting firm called “Alternative Futures.” The company, according to FSB sources, was actually a front for US intelligence, and had nothing to do with legitimate scientific activities. A jury board unanimously found Sutyagin guilty of treason, and the researcher was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment at a maximum security penal colony.

Sutyagin maintains his innocence. He admits that he passed certain information to foreigners, but explained that all of the information came from open and public literature, such as newspapers and journals. Since Sutyagin had no security clearance, he never had access to any classified documents.

In November 2005, Sutyagin was transferred to a second penal colony in Arkhangelsk. In May of 2006, the European Court for Human Rights formally challenged the Russian government on matters relating to the complaints from the scientist’s defense. Sutyagin has been labeled a political prisoner by both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

To read more about the scientist’s plight, visit http://www.sutyagin.org/eng/.