YABLOKO condemns political charges made against Sakharov Laureate Oleg Orlov
LI News Bulletin, Issue 230, April 28, 2011
LI full member party Yabloko has expressed great concerns over the recent charges made against Russian Human Rights Activist Oleg Orlov due to his comments that the Moscow-backed President of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, is politically responsible for the murder of fellow human rights activist Natalya Estemirova in July 2009. According to Yabloko leader, Sergei Mitrokhin: ““Ramzan Kadyrov’s case is a special case even for our generally low political culture. Even in our conditions of extreme restrictions on freedom of speech and general judicial arbitrariness, it never occurred to anyone to make allegations of political responsibility a subject of a law suit…Russia’s policies on Chechnya have to be changed sooner or later. The carte blanche to Ramzan Kadyrov and the people around him is not infinite. We urge the Russian leadership to realize this and change the policies to a more responsible approach. And we repeat: persecution of Oleg Orlov is inadmissible.” Mr. Orlov is the head of the Russian civil rights defence organization Memorial, which won the EU’s 2009 Sakharov Prize for Freedom and thought.
Posted: April 28th, 2011 under Human Rights, The Murder of Natalya Estemirova.