Rallies in Moscow on anniversary of Politkovskaya murder (1st Lead)

Oct 7, 2007, 12:03 GMT

Moscow - Opposition activists, journalist and human rights defenders rallied under the rain in central Moscow Sunday to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the murder of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya and demand fair elections.

A fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin, Politkovskaya had won international acclaim for her reporting of human rights abuses against civilians in war-torn Chechnya.

For Russia's beleaguered opposition groups, her death in a contract-style shooting in the front of her Moscow apartment has come to symbolize the lack of civil liberties and safety for government critics under Putin's rule.

About 1,000 people filed through a police check-point and stood with red carnations for a minute of silence under umbrellas and protest slogans in Pushkin Square Sunday for a Dissenters' March called by Former Prime Minister and opposition leader Mikhail Kayanov.

Moscow city hall had granted permission for 500 to attend the march, Kasyanov's spokeswoman Tatyana Razbash said in the morning, while official reports cited 200 participants at Sunday rally.

Speaking in front of images of Politkovskaya, the former editor and chief at her newspaper Novaya Gazeta Dmitry Muratov announced they would reactivate Politkovskaya's cell telephone in hopes of reviving the stream calls about official malfeasance.

'This number stopped answering on October 7 last year,' Muratov said. 'On this number, people called her to set up meetings during which she was given extremely important information on corruption in the Russian Federation.'

Kasyanov thanked activist worldwide for gathering in commemoration of Politkovskaya's 'political assassination,' and said her name had joined the ranks of rights campaigners Andrei Skharov and Lyudmila Alexeyevna, 79, head of the Moscow Helsinki Group who also spoke on Sunday.

   Kasyanov also decried 'manipulation' and 'propoganda' of 'the Russian Federations' current totalitarian state' and called the upcoming December parliamentary elections 'a farce.'

   Following his speech the crowd briefly took up a chant of 'Russia without Putin,' and waved party signs reading '336 Days Without Politkovskaya' and 'No to Political Censure.'

Using what rights groups have described as bullying tactics, authorities have increasingly cracked down on the wave of Dissenters' Marches held across Russia to call for a fair elections through the March presidential vote.

   Former chess champion Garry Kasparov, the presidential candidate for The Other Russia, an opposition coalition Kasyanov quit earlier this year, said it was 'not a day for politics' and planned to lay flowers in front of Politkovskaya's home, his spokeswoman Lyudimila Mamina said.

   At Kievskaya train station, where activist often meet before the marches, police were only letting in passengers with tickets in hand, and about 200 from the pro-Kremlin youth group Nashi rallied outside in celebration of Putin's 55th birthday.

On Saturday, police detained five Western rights activists and interrogated organizers of a memorial conference for Politkovskaya in the city of Nizhny Novgorod, 400 kilometres east of Moscow. The conference was cancelled after organizers' funds were frozen by authorities.

The five activists including three Spaniards, a Briton and a German employee of Amnesty International were released later in the day. Police had suspected the foreigners of a routine violation of registration regulations, a regional police spokesman was quoted by Interfax as saying.

But the conference organizers complained that the detention was part an official intimidation campaign to stop the meeting, where participants planned to discuss the investigation of Politkovskaya's murder and the state of journalism in Russia today.

The state-run newspaper Rossiskaya Gazeta also on Saturday reported that a Ukrainian mafia boss had been detained in connection with Politkovskaya's murder.

Ten alleged members of a Chechen criminal group, including four law-enforcement officers and a member of the state security service, were arrested in connection with Politkovskaya's death in late August.

On September 24, the former head of a district in Chechnya was also detained as an accomplice in organizing the murder.

Russian Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika had hailed the arrests as major breakthroughs in the investigation to charge Politkovskaya's murderers.

But suspicion that the Kremlin could be linked with her death have only grown deeper as several suspects have had alibis and have been freed.

Politkovskaya was one of 13 journalists slain in contract-style killings in Russia since Putin came to office in 2000, according to the non-governmental Committee to Protect Journalists based in New York.

No suspects have yet been charged in Politkovskaya's murder.