Moscow: residents of Krasnodar Territory state violations of human rights by territorial authorities

Today, the Independent Press Centre in Moscow hosted a press conference "Kuban, venue of 2014 Olympics, is the area of systemic human rights violations: raiders' attacks, corruption and falsification of criminal cases" with participation of residents of the Krasnodar Territory. After the press conference, activists held a picket with a demand of resignation of the leaders of the Krasnodar Territory.

The actors at the press conference were Lev Ponomaryov, executive director of the Movement "For Human Rights "; Alexei Dymovskiy, chairman of the organization "Mothers in Defence of Rights of Detainees, Defendants and Convicts" and head of the public movement "White Tape"; Galina Konovalova, director of the Limited Liability Company (LLC) "RUST-Invest"; Irina Kolesnikova, director of the "Novaya Zhizn" agricultural company; Tatiana Galitsinskaya, a member of the initiative group of the shareholders-victims of property alienation, and other residents of the districts located near the Kuban River ("Kuban" is another name for the whole Krasnodar Territory).

In the course of the event, the public leaders, human rights activists and residents of the region described the situation in the Krasnodar Territory with their personal stories as examples. In total, about 50 persons came to Moscow - from Krasnodar, Sochi, Novorossiysk, Anapa, Timashevsk, Slavianskiy, Kavkazskiy and other areas of the Krasnodar Territory.

Let us note here that no more than 10 journalists came to the press conference. According to the organizers, it is because the majority of the workers of Russian mass media simply have no chance to publish this sort of criticism.

After the press conference, residents of Kuban went to the Chistye Prudy, where they held a picket in defence of their rights and demands to dismiss the governor, chief prosecutor and head of the GUVD (Chief Interior Department) of the Krasnodar Territory, as well as the chairman of the Federal Arbitration Court of the North-Caucasian Federal District (NCFD) and the Chairman of the Krasnodar Territorial Court. According to the organizers of the picket, it was coordinated with the authorities.

As a result of the picket, the protesters compiled the "Open appeal to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev by residents of the Krasnodar Territory, who suffered from raids, corruption, falsification of criminal cases, outrage of the power, militia, prosecution, inquiry and courts."