Rally “Strategy-31” in London: Free politzeki!
Photograph: Evgeny Legedin
A meeting in support of Russian political prisoners and of Strategy-31, in which 15 people participated, took place outside the Russian Embassy in London on Saturday, March 31.
This was not the first event of this kind but this particular rally could not be called “traditional”. For the first time it was carried out by real citizen activists with an absence of political party symbols. Instead of carefully printed leaflets on headed notepaper there were photographs of present-day political prisoners, ranging from Sergey Arakcheyev and National Bolsheviks to those imprisoned because of the YUKOS affair and girls from Pussy Riot. A 3 meter tall standard with the words FREE POLITZEKI was raised and passers-by were handed explanatory leaflets.
Politseki is a new term for most people outside Russia and it had to be explained. The leaflets also provided links to a new English-language website: http://politzeki.tumblr.com/ and a constantly updated list of political prisoners:
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Ekaterina Samusevich, Maria Alekhina, Taisiya Osipova, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Platon Lebedev, Dmitri Velichko, Aleksei Kurtsin, Vladimir Malakhovski, Aleksei Pichugin, Sergei Shimkevitch, Sergei Arakcheev, Pavel Zherebin, Mikhail Pulin, Alyona Goryacheva, Igor Berezyuk, Kirill Unchuk, Ruslan Khubayev, Yuri Shutov, Valentin Urusov, Valentin Danilov, Sergei Vizir, Igor Reshetin, Vladimir Vlasov, Zara Murtazaliyeva, Lors Khamiyev, Ravil Gumarov, Timur Ishmuratov, Maksim Kalinichenko, Sergei Mokhnatkin, Grigori Torbeev, Grigori Chekalin
By Raimond Krumgold
Photograph: Evgeny Legedin
Photograph: Evgeny Legedin
(Source: echo.msk.ru)
