Organizers of picket timed to anniversary of deportation of Chechens face fine

The leaders of the Russian national organizations For Human Rights and Russian Radicals, Lev Ponomaryov and Nikolai Khramov, have been released from the Kitay-Gorod police station.

The two men were detained earlier for organizing an unauthorized picket in the heart of Moscow on February 23 to mark the 60th anniversary of the deportation of the Chechen people.

A source with the Moscow city police told Interfax that Ponomaryov and Khramov had been charged with organizing an unsanctioned picket. The two men are to appear in court on Tuesday. If found guilty, Ponomaryov and Khramov will face an administrative fine.

The Moscow police source said 11 other people detained for participating in the picket had also been released from the Basmannoye police station.

Ponomaryov earlier told Interfax that "over 100 members of various organizations, in particular the For Human Rights movement, the Transnational Radical Party, and the Committee for Antiwar Actions, gathered at the Solovetsky Stone [a memorial to the victims of Soviet-era political reprisals in downtown Moscow] to lay flowers marking the anniversary of the Stalin-ordered deportation of the Chechens."

After that, about 50 of those people held a picket which lasted no longer than 25 minutes, he said.

Editors note: See also the article "Moscow:  no meeting on day in memory of genocide of Chechen people, but placement of flowers".