Canada and US condemn arrest of opposition members in Russia
Russia has started the New 2011 Year persecution the human and democratic rights activists. The arrest of opposition members in Moscow created a wave of reaction from the democratic leaders of the world.
On January 2, 2011, Boris Nemtsov, leader of the democratic opposition movement Solidarity and Russia's Deputy Prime Minister from 1997-1998, was sentenced to a maximum 15 days imprisonment as allowed under Article 19.3 of the Administrative Offenses Code ("disobeying police"). He was arrested on December 31, 2010 and held until January 2, 2011 at Tverskoe police station in a 1.5 by 3 meter concrete cell, without a window, bed or mattress.
U.S. Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Joe Lieberman (I-CT) released the following statement regarding the arrest of opposition members in Russia:
“While people around the world gathered last week to celebrate New Year's Eve, the Russian government arrested almost 70 individuals in Moscow as they peacefully sought to exercise their basic constitutional right to freedom of assembly. We are deeply disappointed by the arrest of former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov and other members of the opposition, and by the unjust prison sentences they have received.
“What makes this episode all the more shameful and outrageous is that the Moscow municipal government had granted a license for the rally at which these individuals were evidently arrested. In this respect, the treatment of Mr. Nemtsov and other members of the opposition should provide a stark warning to the rest of the world about the disregard for rule of law that has come to characterize contemporary Russia. Despite the start of a new year, it seems the same old culture of legal nihilism continues to reign in Russia.”
Other opposition leaders and activists sentenced in connection with the rally on Triumfalnaya Square include: Ilya Yashin of Solidarity (5 days), Kirill Manulin of Another Russia (8 days), Konstantin Kosyakin of Left Front (10 days), and Eduard Limonov of Another Russia (15 days). All of them spent New Year's in police detention. In all, 68 people were arrested at the rally in Moscow and more than 50 people at a similar opposition rally in St. Petersburg.
Liberal MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj (Etobicoke Centre) is renewing his call on the Canadian Government, and particularly Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon, to make clear to Russian authorities that the campaign of arrests and imprisonments of human and democratic rights activists such as Mr. Nemstov must cease. The Russian people's constitutional right to democratic assembly must be guaranteed.
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