The meeting unanimously adopted a decision to create a Committee for the Protection of Muscovites.

Deputy Chairman of the Russian Democratic Party YABLOKO Sergei Mitrokhin was elected Chairman of the Committee.

The goal of the Committee is to unite over 200 different groups currently standing for their rights in Moscow into a single powerful organisation protecting the rights of Muscovites in city construction and facilitating the creation of favourable living conditions for the residents of Moscow.

“We should not think that we are feeble! We have different ways and means of pressurising the authorities, said Sergei Mitrokhin. – We are using all available resources at our disposal to protect Muscovites from arbitrary rule.”

The Committee also plans to engineer the resignation of the officials adopting unlawful decisions in city construction and guilty of delays in consideration of the complaints of the citizens.

The meeting also considered the issue of conducting a trilateral meeting involving the Mayor of Moscow and Ombudsman of the RF and representatives of the Committee to discuss the prospects of resolving the crisis situation in city construction in Moscow.

Earlier on June 9, 2004, Russian Ombudsman Vladimir Lukin proposed organizing such a meeting on receiving this request from the initiative groups. Under the current law no officials can refuse to meet with the Ombudsman.

In addition, the meeting decided also to create a Conflict Resolution Commission that will aim to resolve specific conflicts, taking due consideration of the opinions of all interested parties: the residents of the area, the construction companies and representatives of the Moscow authorities.

According to Alexei Navalny who was elected the Executive Secretary of the Committee and Coordinator of the Conflict Resolution Commission, the commission soon plans to consider complaints from a number of initiative groups. “All the meetings of the Conflict Resolution Commission will be held with maximum publicity and we shall also attract representatives from the public and the mass media,” stressed Navalny.

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