Russian activists meet German president, ask for help in Magnitskiy case

ITAR-TASS

Head of the Moscow Helsinki Group Lyudmila Alekseyeva has urged the German authorities to introduce visa restrictions for Russian officials involved in the case of the lawyer of the Hermitage Capital fund, Sergey Magnitskiy, who had died in a Moscow detention centre.

Alekseyeva made this appeal in Moscow at a meeting with German President of Christian Wulff with representatives of Russian public organizations today.

“I said that representatives of the German parliament, who had also come to Moscow together with the German president, could consider introducing visa restrictions and restrictions on financial transactions for those who are involved in the Magnitskiy case,” Alekseyeva told Interfax after her meeting with the president of Germany.

According to Alekseyeva, her proposal that Germany should introduce visa restrictions was supported by other participants in the meeting, for instance, editor-in-chief of The News Times newspaper Yevgeniya Albats and editor-in-chief of the Novaya Gazeta newspaper Dmitriy Muratov.

Alekseyeva said that Russian civil activists were seeking international assistance in Magnitskiy case because, in her words, it was not being investigated in Russia.

“We are in favour of simplifying the visa regime between Russia and the EU, but in this case we are talking about individuals whose names are well known,” Alekseyeva said.

In addition, Alekseyeva said that at a meeting with the German president they had discussed the killings of journalists and human rights activists in Russia. “In particular, we said that we still didn’t know who had killed [journalist] Anna Politkovskaya and [human right activist] Natalya Estemirova,” Alekseyeva said.

She said at the meeting that for the second year running the opposition and human rights had been unable to hold a rally in defence of freedom of assembly on Triumfalnaya Ploshchad [Square] in Moscow.

“We applied for permission to hold a rally on Triumfalnaya Ploshchad 11 times and 11 times we were unable to get this square for an hour to hold a rally,” she said.

Alekseyeva said she had come to the meeting with the German president wearing a badge with the inscription 31 in support of Article 31 of the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of rallies and marches. займ на карту без отказов круглосуточно займы на карту https://zp-pdl.com/apply-for-payday-loan-online.php https://zp-pdl.com/fast-and-easy-payday-loans-online.php unshaven girl