MINELRES: Latvia: Police abuse of demonstrators against Yeltsin's visit

[email protected] [email protected]
Tue Aug 29 09:38:44 2006


Original sender: Headquarters of Russian-Language School Defenders
<[email protected]>


On August 25, 2006 representatives of the Latvian Human Rights Committee
have filed a complaint about inadequate and unlawful behavior of State
Police against Bulat Abeev, a citizen of Russia permanently living in
Latvia. During the ex-president of Russia Boris Yeltsin's visit in
Latvia, Abeev together with his comrade Victor Dergunov (a member of the
City Council of Latvia�s capital, Riga) tried to hold a picket near the
place of Yeltsin�s arrival to a meeting with the Latvian government. The
goal of the picket was to remind of negative impact that Yeltsin's
policy had on the Russian community of Latvia, resulting in severe
restrictions of democracy and human rights of hundreds of thousands
people. According to LHRC, the police acting against the law and the
Constitution that protects the freedom of speech and the right to
peaceful demonstrations, had detained Abeev and Dergunov immediately 
and drove them off to the police office where Abeev had been morally
threatened and physically injured by police officers.

--------------------------------
Latvian Human Rights Committee was founded in 1990, 
since 1995 is a member of F.I.D.H. 
102a Dzirnavu St., LV1010 Latvia, Riga
Phones: 7289473, 7285633

The Headquarters of Russian-language School Defenders was founded in
2003 in response to education reform introduced by Latvian government
that severely restricts the right to use minorities' languages in
education

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