Human Rights Center "Memorial" demands to stop fanning anti-Chechen sentiments in Moscow

We call your attention to the text of the letters addressed by the Human Rights Center "Memorial" to the Moscow Mayor and Prosecutor in view of the forthcoming meeting titled "Clear Moscow of Chechen Bandits":

Dear Yuri Mikhailovich and Anatoly Ilyich,

The announcements of the following content were pasted in many cars of the Moscow metro on 16 and 17 February 2004:

"Clear Moscow of Chechen Bandits!

Muscovites! Nationals! Chechen bandits have become masters in Moscow. We are killed and exploded, and the authorities do nothing protecting the Chechen mafia. It's time to establish order and to evict criminal diasporas and terror accomplices from the city! Come to the national meeting of Muscovites that will take place on Lubyanka Square, at the Solovetsky Stone, at 5:00 - 8:00 p.m. on 20 February (Friday). Don't be indifferent! Do come! The Movement Against Illegal Immigration.

www.dpni.org - tel.: 772 94 35. Spread information about the meeting through Internet, forums and guest books. Invite your relatives, acquaintances, friends and colleagues to the meeting."

This announcement is also placed in Internet, on the website of the so-called Russian Movement Against Illegal Immigration http://www.dpni.org/news.html#newsitem1076930199,32061.

It is quite obvious that the Moscow Prosecutor's Office must react to the provocative actions of the organizers of this meeting. We draw your attention to the fact that this announcement, being widely spread in Moscow, contains the barefaced appeal to break norms of the Constitution and legislation of Russia. Its authors openly appeal to evict diasporas disagreeable to them, which they call "criminal" in addition, from Moscow. In other words, both the appeal to carry out ethnic cleansing and actions aimed at fanning ethnic strife are present. It is quite evident that the authors of the aforecited appeal purposely fan pogrom sentiments in Moscow. It is no less evident that the holding of such a meeting will noticeably worsen the situation in Moscow and can produce mass violent acts on the part of extremist groups.

We demand that criminal proceedings against the group of people who arranged and executed the distribution of this announcement in public places be immediately instituted by Article 282 of the Russian Criminal Code. We ask to make a prosecutor's examination of the activity of the Russian Movement Against Illegal Immigration extremist organization. We ask to inform us of the decisions that will be made by the Moscow Prosecutor's Office.

On behalf of the Council of the Human Rights Center "Memorial"
Council Chairman Oleg Orlov