In memory of victims of "Nord-Ost": mourning meeting in Saint Petersburg

On Sunday, October 26, a mourning meeting dedicated to the anniversary of the storm of the theatre center on Dubrovka, Moscow, was held at the Solovetsky stone on Troitskaya Square in Saint Petersburg. Human rights activists of the Memorial society, activists of the Saint Petersburg League of Anarchists and other members of the antiwar movement gave their speeches during the meeting. The total number of participants did not exceed 50 people. We call your attention to the extracts from some speeches of the meeting participants.

Yuli Ribakov, Russian State Duma deputy: We have gathered here today, on the grievous anniversary of the events that showed everything in our state remained as before. Ordinary citizens can fall prays to the state terror as before.

More than 200 people, who had come to see a musical, fell prays to the ambitions of the state, which did not want to negotiate with the terrorists. Though there was such an opportunity, and several people who had experience of negotiations with terrorists proposed themselves to be truce envoys so that to save at least as many people as possible. But the authority did not want it; the authority declined such a chance, preferring to imitate the negotiations with the help of people who did not have such experience.

And at the same time the shocking action - the attack with poison gas against the hundreds of people - was being prepared under a veil of attempts to save people.

Yuri Vdovin of the public organization "Civil Control": One of the most outstanding members of the human rights movement, Marek Nowicki, died a week and a half ago. The entire world grieved for him, only in Russia no newspaper line and no radio and TV air second was found to remember him. It characterizes the attitude to the protection of human rights and generally to the individual in our country. Fewer and fewer people attend all these actions, but we must still abide by the undertakings that were devised after the tragedy of World War II - the undertakings of human rights defense.

The individual is the only value for the sake of which everything can be made. I want us to always remember nothing will change for the better in this country if we do not do something to protect the individual - any individual, regardless of nationality and race.

Pyotr Raush of the Saint Petersburg League of Anarchists: First of all, I'd like to say that they commemorated the anniversary of "Nord-Ost", a tragic and morning anniversary, not on October 26, but on October 23 for some reason. They try to show they did not kill the people, no one from their leadership, from security agencies was responsible for what happened.

But this government exists in our country and we give it a kind of support. So we bear responsibility in some sense.

In order that everything will change, we must do it ourselves. 200,000 of dead bodies for 9 years - it is a problem number one today. This is more important than the elections, more important than new tax legislation. This is the most important problem today as more and more people die. Something must been done. I call upon everybody to stir up energies.