 When: 18-00 - 20-30. Where: London - outside the Russian Embassy What: A protest in support of Pussy Riot and other Russian political prisoners. Come and join us to demand Mr Putin to: FREE PUSSY RIOT! FREE POLITZEKI! Nadezhda Tolokonnikova Ekaterina Samusevitch Maria Alekhina Taisiya Osipova Dmitri Rozhin 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 Fanis Shaykhutdinov Maksim Kalinichenko Grigori Torbeev Grigori Chekalin Mikhail Klevachev Olga Shalina http://politzeki.tumblr.com/list_of_prisoners The tradition to protest on the 31 of each month comes from Article 31 of the Russian Constitution which states: "Citizens of the Russian Federation shall have the right to gather peacefully, without weapons, and to hold meetings, rallies, demonstrations, marches and pickets." *** A leaflet distributed at the rally reads: Whatever’s Going On in Russia?! · Three young women from a feminist punk-band Pussy Riot are on trial for performing in church and asking the Virgin Mary “to chuck out Putin”. They face up to 7 years imprisonment. (You can sign the petition to release them http://www.causes.com/causes/787323-free-pussy-riot-now-pussy-riot); · The famous blogger, Alexey Navalny, who tries to fight corruption at the top level, has been charged with embezzlement and forbidden to leave the country; · A case is being fabricated against 14 detained participants of the protest against Putin’s inauguration on 6 May 2012. Four restrictive laws have just been hastily adopted by the Russian parliament and ratified by the president. These will - Impose heavy fines for participating in peaceful rallies; - Fine people for “defamation”, i.e. any criticism of the authorities; - Make it easy to block websites; and - require NGOs receiving grants from overseas to register as “foreign agents”. These actions are widely seen as the revenge of Putin’s regime on the peaceful civil movement, which began its activities in December. Then the movement was protesting against the rigging and falsification of parliamentary elections and the prospect of a third Putin term as Russian president. Join us in demanding an end to the clamp-down on the Russian opposition! Don’t deal with the illegitimate regime! |
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