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Prosecutors issue warnings to organizers of opposition meetings in Moscow

Meetings are due to be held on the downtown Trubnaya Square Saturday, October 20, and Sunday, October 21

Photo ITAR-TASS

Photo ITAR-TASS

MOSCOW, October 19 (Itar-Tass) — Moscow City Prosecutor’s Office has warned the organizers of street actions, which a number of off-parliament opposition parties and movements plan holding over the weekend, that any encroachments on the law are totally inadmissible.

Meetings are due to be held on the downtown Trubnaya Square Saturday, October 20, and Sunday, October 21.

Moscow City authorities have authorized the participation of about 1,500 people in each meeting and have allotted the central alley of Tsvetnoi Boulevard for the purpose.

Saturday, the action will be held from 12:00 hours through to 18:00 hours and Sunday, from 15:00 hours through to 21:00 hours.

The Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement that one of the leaders of nonconformist left-wing opposition, Sergei Udaltsov, had uploaded appeals to the public at large in the Internet to join the actions on Trubnaya Square for supporting political prisoners

“Considering the resounding public effect that the two actions may have, encroachments on the law and order by organizers of and participants in the actions may entail disruptions of public order,” the Prosecutor’s Office said.

To rule out possible incidents, prosecutors of Moscow City’s Central Administrative District have warned the organizers – Pyotr Tsarkov, Yelena Lukyanova, Denis Bilunov, and Yevgeniya Tretyakova – of the inadmissibility of violations, including a spontaneous change of the declared objectives of the actions.

A warning has also been sent to Udaltsov, who said earlier that defense of ‘political prisoners’ – eighteen people detained in connection with streets riots during a similar oppositionist action May 6 – will be one of the keynotes at the weekend meetings.

“We believe our new convicts should become no less important a theme of the October 20 meeting than the election of the Opposition Coordination Council.

Alexei Mayorov, the chief of Moscow City’s Department for Public Security said Thursday a sudden unwarranted change of the declared purpose of the action will not be legal.

“The purpose of the action has already been coordinated and we didn’t receive any notifications on its change,” he said. “We had a meeting with them /representatives of the opposition – Itar-Tass/ earlier in the day and we discussed only technical details with them.”

“But a change of objectives of the meeting or any other initially coordinated terms will only be considered as a breach of the federal law,” Mayorov said.

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