Moscow - Opposition activists, journalist and human rights
defenders rallied under the rain in central Moscow Sunday to
commemorate the one-year anniversary of the murder of investigative
journalist Anna Politkovskaya and demand fair elections.
A fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin, Politkovskaya had won
international acclaim for her reporting of human rights abuses
against civilians in war-torn Chechnya.
For Russia's beleaguered opposition groups, her death in a
contract-style shooting in the front of her Moscow apartment has come
to symbolize the lack of civil liberties and safety for government
critics under Putin's rule.
About 1,000 people filed through a police check-point and stood
with red carnations for a minute of silence under umbrellas and
protest slogans in Pushkin Square Sunday for a Dissenters' March
called by Former Prime Minister and opposition leader Mikhail
Kayanov.
Moscow city hall had granted permission for 500 to attend the
march, Kasyanov's spokeswoman Tatyana Razbash said in the morning,
while official reports cited 200 participants at Sunday rally.
Speaking in front of images of Politkovskaya, the former editor
and chief at her newspaper Novaya Gazeta Dmitry Muratov announced
they would reactivate Politkovskaya's cell telephone in hopes of
reviving the stream calls about official malfeasance.
'This number stopped answering on October 7 last year,' Muratov
said. 'On this number, people called her to set up meetings during
which she was given extremely important information on corruption in
the Russian Federation.'
Kasyanov thanked activist worldwide for gathering in commemoration
of Politkovskaya's 'political assassination,' and said her name had
joined the ranks of rights campaigners Andrei Skharov and Lyudmila
Alexeyevna, 79, head of the Moscow Helsinki Group who also spoke on
Sunday.
Kasyanov also decried 'manipulation' and 'propoganda' of 'the
Russian Federations' current totalitarian state' and called the
upcoming December parliamentary elections 'a farce.'
Following his speech the crowd briefly took up a chant of 'Russia
without Putin,' and waved party signs reading '336 Days Without
Politkovskaya' and 'No to Political Censure.'
Using what rights groups have described as bullying tactics,
authorities have increasingly cracked down on the wave of Dissenters'
Marches held across Russia to call for a fair elections through the
March presidential vote.
Former chess champion Garry Kasparov, the presidential candidate
for The Other Russia, an opposition coalition Kasyanov quit earlier
this year, said it was 'not a day for politics' and planned to lay
flowers in front of Politkovskaya's home, his spokeswoman Lyudimila
Mamina said.
At Kievskaya train station, where activist often meet before the
marches, police were only letting in passengers with tickets in hand,
and about 200 from the pro-Kremlin youth group Nashi rallied outside
in celebration of Putin's 55th birthday.
On Saturday, police detained five Western rights activists and
interrogated organizers of a memorial conference for Politkovskaya in
the city of Nizhny Novgorod, 400 kilometres east of Moscow. The
conference was cancelled after organizers' funds were frozen by
authorities.
The five activists including three Spaniards, a Briton and a
German employee of Amnesty International were released later in the
day. Police had suspected the foreigners of a routine violation of
registration regulations, a regional police spokesman was quoted by
Interfax as saying.
But the conference organizers complained that the detention was
part an official intimidation campaign to stop the meeting, where
participants planned to discuss the investigation of Politkovskaya's
murder and the state of journalism in Russia today.
The state-run newspaper Rossiskaya Gazeta also on Saturday
reported that a Ukrainian mafia boss had been detained in connection
with Politkovskaya's murder.
Ten alleged members of a Chechen criminal group, including four
law-enforcement officers and a member of the state security service,
were arrested in connection with Politkovskaya's death in late
August.
On September 24, the former head of a district in Chechnya was
also detained as an accomplice in organizing the murder.
Russian Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika had hailed the arrests as
major breakthroughs in the investigation to charge Politkovskaya's
murderers.
But suspicion that the Kremlin could be linked with her death have
only grown deeper as several suspects have had alibis and have been
freed.
Politkovskaya was one of 13 journalists slain in contract-style
killings in Russia since Putin came to office in 2000, according to
the non-governmental Committee to Protect Journalists based in New
York.
No suspects have yet been charged in Politkovskaya's murder.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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