Thursday, March 20, 2008

Serious and frightening situation in Nizhny Novgorod

The police has raided the office of the Human rights activists in Nizny Novgorod. Again. They have also interrogated people closely or not-so-closely connected to the activists, asking questions like where do they get the money etc.

(Needless for me to say, but I will say this anyway: ALL the money – which is not much, by the way – is coming from public sources, like other NGO's.)

Edit: SUPPOSABLY some activists are detained or arrested. Difficult to say yet, as some telephones have been confiscated and many people are out of reach. Those who have reached each other are desperately looking for other colleagues and friends.

The organisations the activists and workers of which are targeted are the Nizhny Novgorod Foundation for Promoting Tolerance and Russian-Chechen Friendship Society.

Members of these organisations are scared. They are also totally unable to work, as the police has sealed the office. No-one can get in.

IStori will publish an update here, once I get more information from the spot.

Do not play with the Omon. This demonstration took pleace in Moscow. But there were marches like this in Nizhny, too. And likewise, Omon stopped everything.


Day before yesterday I asked Oksana Chelysheva, the chair of Foundation for Promoting Tolerance if she thinks Medvedev will be an easier guy compared to Putin. Vice versa, she said: "Medvedev admires Putin. And, Medvedev is even more worried about his status as a leader than Putin. So that makes him scarier. Things will get even worse."

* * * * *

To get more background information, please see the posts I have labeled under the tag "Russia".

No comments: