Strasbourg, 13/06/2012 (Agence Europe) - EU High Representative Catherine Ashton, addressing the European Parliament (EP) on Tuesday 12 June, called on the Russian government to engage with European institutions to ensure that the new law on public rallies meets European standards, and she expressed concern about the steps taken to limit the scope for public rallies. She stated that legislation governing public rallies should first and foremost guarantee freedom of assembly.
Ashton said she was “particularly concerned” about attempts to intimidate protest leaders and prevent them from participating in the demonstration on 12 June, which attracted several tens of thousands of people in Moscow and around 5,000 in Saint Petersburg, to protest against the regime. “Peaceful assembly is a fundamental right, and strong measures to curtail this right are likely to prove counterproductive”, she argued, encouraging the Russian government and civil society to engage in a constructive dialogue on the promotion of democratic standards and future reforms.
Leader of the ALDE Group in the EP Guy Verhofstadt called, on Tuesday 12 June, on the Russian authorities to take immediate steps to implement reform and to stop harassing civil society leaders and the political opposition. “The one hundred thousand Russian citizens that came out on the streets of Moscow today to peacefully demonstrate represent a new Russia. Russian authorities need to listen and take note by responding to their key demands: genuine political reform, free and fair elections and reform of the judiciary”, he stated. His colleague Kristiina Ojuland highlighted the Duma decision to considerably toughen penalties against peaceful demonstrators. “This boils down to yet another effort by the authorities to tighten their grip on power and suppress further fundamental rights of Russian citizens”, she argued. (CG/transl.rt)