MOSCOW, December 11./TASS/. The chairman of the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights, Mikhail Fedotov, has come up with a proposal to President Vladimir Putin to back the initiative to declare amnesty to mark the 25th anniversary of the Constitution.

"Five years ago you supported the Council’s initiative to declare amnesty on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Constitution. The 25th anniversary - is it a less significant cause for amnesty?" he asked the president who met with the Council on Tuesday.

Fedotov noted that human rights champion Lyudmila Alekseeva, who died on December 8, had also been in favor of amnesty. The president took part in a public viewing ceremony earlier on Tuesday.

Alekseeva, a member of the Russian Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights and the head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, died aged 91 in Moscow on Saturday.

Alekseeva joined the human rights movement in 1966. In 1977, she was forced to emigrate from the Soviet Union. The dissident settled in the United States and authored some research into the history of dissident movement in the Soviet Union. Alekseeva returned to Russia in 1993 and three years later headed the oldest human rights organization - the Moscow Helsinki Group. In 2002, she joined the Russian Presidential Commission for Human Rights, which was transformed into the Russian Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights in 2004.