Elena Batenkova: authorities want to ban antiwar picket

Elena Batenkova, a member of the Feedback group and the Committee for Antiwar Actions, is a participant in the picket on Pushkinskaya Square, protesting against the war in Chechnya and appealing to stop the conflict their through negotiations. The picket has been regularly held since February 2000. Elena Batenkova has been rewarded for her peacemaking activity with the Peace Prize recently. She gave the Caucasian Knot correspondent an interview about her public activity.

- An attempt to ban you picket was made on March 11. What happened?

- There was an attempt to disperse the picket. Viktor Sakirko and I were illegally detained as organizers of the action and sent to a police department. Viktor Sakirko was called up an hour before the beginning of the action and was told the picket was banned. They explained it by saying he had spoken at the meeting held on Pushkinskaya Square the day before under the title "People Against Dictatorship" and had proved the idea of boycotting the [presidential] election. This in itself is absolutely legal, as I know, let alone that it was the height of disrespect on the part of the authorities to notify of the ban an hour before the action. Therefore we made the firm decision to hold the picket anyway. The deputy prefect of Moscow's Tverskoy district conducted long negations with us, assuring nobody would arrest us if we broke up quietly. After it, we spent three hours at the Tverskoy police department, refused to give any explanations, signed our disagreement with the report, and decided to provide explanations in court.

- What is the date of the trial?

- The trial was to be held on March 12. But we did not have summonses in hand and decided to act consistently, within the framework of the legal action. We have lawyers and legal support. We are waiting for the summonses. We are completely sure we are in the right. According to the law, any citizen has the right to notify about his/her intentions and then put them into practice if they are not at variance with the Constitution currently in force. Our appeals and declarations contain nothing conflicting with it.

- How did the picket on Pushkinskaya Square appear?

- When the second Chechen campaign started, the group which forms the core of the Committee for Antiwar Actions now decided to create a kind of permanent point to inform people of what was going on there [in Chechnya]. We have prepared leaflets and distributed them among people who know little about this war. Our action is of enlightening nature. We want people who hold the other, official point of view to be able to look at the problem otherwise.

- Would you tell a little about picket participants? What people come to you?

- Very different people do. There are teachers, journalists, householders, pensioners, and students among them. We all adhere to different ideological views. There are communists, democrats, and liberals among us. We picket without flags. The only strict requirement we have is not to show political convictions. The only thing unites us: the wish to make the end of the war closer.

- How do you estimate your odds for success?

- And what do you call success? If to speak about the end of the war, we understand our voice is not a decisive one. But the war destroys our civic and human self, and we would like to be able to remain human beings in future, when this severe conflict is over.

Editors note: See also the article "Participants in antiwar picket detained in Moscow".