Bolotnaya Square events cannot be defined as riots - human rights defenders
MOSCOW. June 28 (Interfax) - Human rights defenders have called illegal the criminal cases on the counts of Bolotnaya Square riots and demanded to drop the accusations.
"There was no crime that could be defined as riots under the Russian Criminal Code on Bolotnaya Square on May 6," says a statement read out by Movement for Human Rights leader Lev Ponomaryov after the public hearings at the Sakharov Center.
Head of Russia's oldest human rights organization, Moscow Helsinki Group, Lyudmila Alexeyeva, Moscow Public Observation Commission Chairman Valery Borshchov and Memorial Society head Sergei Kovalyov signed the statement.
"It is necessary to drop the riots charges [Article 212 of the Russian Criminal Code] against all the suspects, to terminate procedural violations and to punish persons responsible for them, and to release the suspects on their own recognizance," the document said.
The human rights defenders also demanded a thorough investigation of every complaint about beating of citizens in the May 6 action and to punish the guilty police officers.