MOSCOW, July 13 (Itar-Tass) —Leaders of Russia’s political opposition movements and parties have written a letter to the chief of the Investigations Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, urging him to revoke the criminal cases over disturbances on Bolotnaya Square in Moscow May 6. While the oppositionists are getting ready for a new action of protest, some of the persons that may get into the picture in connection with the case are likely to receive political asylum abroad.
Members of the recently formed Coordination Committee of the opposition demand that the chief of the Investigations Committee stop the prosecution against all the people detained on Bolotnaya Square May 6, Nezavissimaya Gazeta writes. According to Sergei Davidis, a member of the committee, the statement has been signed by more than 30 public figures and politicians, including landmark personalities like Boris Nemtsov, Alexei Navalny, Sergei Udaltsov, and others.
On the face of the plans for holding a ‘Heatwave in July’ action July 26, an activist of the Solidarity movement Anastasia Rybachenko may ask the German authorities for permission to stay back. A search was conducted in her mother’s house Thursday in connection with the Bolotnaya Square disturbances case.
“It’s not clear yet what kind of charges are being issued against me because it’s more than a year since I left that apartment,” Rybachenko said. “The policemen confiscated a sweatshirt which I allegedly was wearing during the May 6 action – although I didn’t wear it in reality. At the end they issued a warning that it would be wise for me ‘to report and repent’, or they would find me all the same.”
Kommersant says that Alexander Dolmatov, a member of the Other Russia movement who detained during the March of the Millions June 13 has asked authorities in the Netherlands to grant a political asylum to him.
“Police did come to my apartment for a search and visited my office, too, but I had left by the time they could issue any charges to me,” he said.