Mothers against Political Repressions again ask Moscow govt for permission to go on march
MOSCOW. Jan 14 (Interfax) - The Mothers against Political Repressions movement has again asked the Moscow government for permission to go on a march in support of defendants in the Network and New Greatness cases, Svetlana Pchelintseva, a member of the march organizing committee and mother of Network case defendant Dmitry Pchelintsev, told Interfax on Monday.
"We filed another application today. We insist on the same route but have reported a smaller turnout: 1,000 instead of the 10,000 indicated in our first application. The date has been moved to February 1," Pchelintseva said.
The march is expected to begin in the center of Novopushkinsky Park and to go along the central sidewalk of Tverskoi Boulevard, via Nikitskiye Vorota, Bolshanaya Nikitskaya Street, Arbatskiye Vorota, and Novy Arbat to Gogolevsky Boulevard.
"The primary objective of the march is to support the call for observance of constitutional rights of citizens, release of political prisoners, and prevention of political repressions," the organizers said in a statement.
The organizing committee filed its first application on January 9 and said that the march would take place on January 25. However, the Moscow city security and anti-corruption department denied approval of the route and said that the march would create impediments to non-participants. The department proposed that the march be held on Pererva Street.
Mothers against Political Repressions was founded in November 2019 by Vlada Rusina, the head of the Council for the Release of former Serpukhov District head Alexander Shestun, Yulia Vinogradova, the mother of New Greatness case defendant Anna Pavlikova, and Natalia Konon, charges against whose son, Daniil, were dropped in the Moscow unrest case.
Dmitry Pchelintsev is a Network case defendant charged with creating "a terrorist organization." The prosecution service said he was Network's leader and demanded that he be sentenced to 18 years in prison.
The Federal Security Service opened the Network case in October 2017. Eleven defendants from Penza, St. Petersburg, and Moscow feature in the case. According to the investigators, Network's goal was to commit terror attacks and to topple the authorities. Activists and community leaders have repeatedly spoken in the defendants' favor.