MOSCOW, January 8 (Itar-Tass) —— Russian presidential children rights commissioner Pavel Astakhov supported an international action in defence of maternity rights of Russian citizen Rimma Salonen, the press service of the Russian presidential children rights commissioner reported on Sunday.
“Today the pickets were staged on the occasion of 1,000 days since Anton Salonen’s kidnapping from Russia in nine countries, namely New Zealand, Norway, Russia, Finland, Italy, Denmark, Belgium, Canada and Australia,” the press service recalled. In December 2009 father Paavo Salonen kidnapped his underage son Anton from Russia, where the latter lived with his mother Rimma Salonen. A diplomatic official from the Finnish General Consulate in St. Petersburg Simo Pietilainen illegally trafficked the child across the border in the luggage compartment of the car. The Finnish Prosecutor General’s Office refused to open a criminal case over the incident. Moreover, the court rules to strip Rimma Salonen of the parental care rights for her son and permitted her to meet with her son twice a month for two hours in the presence of social workers.
“The Finnish Prosecutor General’s Office and the court actually legalized the kidnapping of Russian boy Anton, even with the use of diplomatic possibilities, which were granted for no unlawful actions. Instead of real guarantees to communicate with the son, meetings with him and the care for him the persecution and discrimination against Rimma continues. This attitude to the child and the maternity rights does not meet high international standards for the protection of children’s rights and contradicts the normal common sense. The protest actions are a forced response to indifference, injustice and an obviously biased position of Finnish authorities,” the press service said.