Storm of Solovetsky stone

Moscow human rights defenders detained for the "unauthorized expression of sorrow"

The table in the Moscow Department of Internal Affairs "Kitay-Gorod" (this is the very center, the department right in Red Square)-like a Beslan memorial.

The posters are sparkling, flowers are broken, candles are trampled. Among other things, our newspaper also sticks out from under the poster chopsticks on this table-its crumpled 65th number , where the now famous report by the State Duma deputy Yuri Savelyev is published. On the calendar on September 3, and this police table is a table of material evidence.

These are mainly metropolitan human rights activists who notified the authorities in advance that it was in 13.05 (the time the assault on Beslan was on September 3, 2004) they will gather at the Solovetsky stone in Lubyanka in Moscow - at the traditional place of mourning events - to light candles, remember, pray together, and cover the stone with flowers.

The first official reason for the ban: we have a “holiday with solemn events” (City Day). When the winds changed upstairs and the city day nevertheless decided to localize only on September 2, and on the 3rd they outlined official commemoration, the second reason for the ban was the need to “clean the Lubyansk Square after the holiday”.

Many of the "civilians"-the radio "in the ear", they constantly report something quietly there and listen, closing another auditory passage, in the recommendations of invisible coordinators. The police are loudly led: come on, come on, disperse. And everything is shot on their cameras - the “operators” will noticeably zealous with close plans: so that the faces of the “wrong” are left in the archives. Some of the “operators” work right in the crowd, among which there are many who hold in their hands the Beslan release of Novaya Gazeta with the report of the State Duma deputy Yuri Savelyev , who refuted the official version of the assault in Beslan. Then, in the police, in the protocols it will appear: “... had in the hands of No. 65 of the“ Novaya Gazeta ”. Is that the fault? ..

At 13.10, it is all over-13 people in two batches, pushing the buses in pre-completed buses, together with posters and flowers are taken to the China-Gorod police department. Women again light candles - right on the asphalt of the Lubyansky passage. Someone sits right there, on the sidewalk, a plush bear and a hare, a small child puts his candy next to the toys, put a bottle of water. It turns out the Beslan altar - as in thousands of cities in the world on this day and at this hour. People are praying quietly, crying, boys from the first police cordon hide their eyes. Deputies of the Moscow City Duma, who came to the picket to the Solovetsky stone,-Ivan Novitsky (ATP) and Sergey Mitrokhin (Yabloko), are sent to the help of the China Gorod.

- Understand, this is the deputy’s report. He is an explosive technician, he conducted research - he is a specialist. You read, he proved that the fire in the gym began with the fact that our grenade launchers beat on the school roof. The hostages burned from this ...

- No! Can't be! Everyone is lying in the media! And this report is not a deputy, but the journalists themselves wrote! This is "new"! They explained to us ...

Both the discussion and accidentally breaking through the words, of course, systematize the sensations from how the second anniversary of the Beslan days passed in the country. The authorities entered into a decisive battle with dissent on the sick topic for itself - no Savelyev ... She seeks to privatize everything: sorrow, and ideology, and, in the course of the play, even the Solovetsky stone ...

Maybe for the better. While they are dense - we have access where they do not go.

Anna Politkovskaya, observer of "New"

09/07/2006