To Y.Y.Chaika, Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, and V.P.Lukin, Ombudsman  

Elections of the new President of the Russian Federation were marked with an ominous precedent – that’s invention of a criminal case against a political opponent to the standing regime.

On the night of 2/3 March the law enforcement bodies detained the chair of the St Petersburg committee of Yabloko party Maxim Reznik. He is charged with “contempt against public agents” and “violent actions towards public agents” which allegedly was expressed in his assault made against three (!) police officers. 

4 March 2008 the judge of the Dzerzhinsky federal court of St Petersburg Olga Andreeva passed resolution for placing Mr. Reznik into the Kresty pre-trial prison where kept are people accused and suspected of committing criminal offence. 
The judge Andreeva refused Mr. Reznik’s colleagues, members of the public and reporters to be present at reading, which was a gross violation of the Procedural Criminal Code. This, of course, will be appealed in the Human Rights European Court. As a protest against obviously preterlegal decision Maxim Reznik went on a hunger strike.    

Framing up this case, the St Petersburg authorities start the new round of political repressions and make a next challenge for the civil society and for all Russian people who feel themselves to be real citizens.  

None of them believe that Maxim Reznik could have attacked the police officers. None of them believe that staying at large till the court day he might go on the run or pressurize the witnesses.

We are applying to the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation with a demand:

- to stop immediately this framed-up case,

- to carry out an internal investigation and call to account the initiators and performers of this concocted case.

We require putting an end to the disgraceful practice of using the law enforcement bodies by the executive power for achieving its own political goals.

Lyudmila Alekseeva,  chair of Moscow Helsinki Group

Sergei Kovalev,  Institute of Human Rights

Boris Pustyntsev, chair,  Yuri Vdovin, deputy chair, public human rights organization “Civil Control” 

Lev Ponomarev, executive director of All-Russian public movement “For Human Rights”  

Yuri Samodurov, director of the Museum and the community center after A.D. Sakharov

Ernst Chyorny, executive secretary of the Public Committee for Scholar Protection

Father Gleb Yakunin, Committee for protection of freedom of conscience

Boris Strugatsky, writer 

Yakov Gilinsky, Professor, Dr. of Law

Andrei Alekseev, sociologist

Boris Vishnevsky, observer of Novaya Gazeta, member of the committee of Yabloko party

Lilia Shevtsova, Professor, Dr. Of History, senior research worker at the Carnegie Fund 

Igor Klyamkin, vice-president of the Liberal Mission Fund

Andrei Piontkovsky, Professor, member of the international Pen-club, member of Yabloko party bureau  

Nina Katerli (Efros), member of the Writers Union of Moscow, member of the international Pen-club

Vladimir Kuznetsov, deputy chair of the faction Green Russia of the Yabloko party, member of Yabloko party bureau

Vadim Belotserkovsky, writer, publicist, human rights activist (Germany) 

Samuil Lurye, writer, critic 

Vladimir Pribylovsky, historian, president of the Panorama Center

Alexander Kobrinsky, Professor, Dr. Of Philology 

Viktor Nikolaev, journalist, St Petersburg 

Elena Bonner, human rights activist, public figure 

Alexander Gorsky, historian

Kirill Strakhov, deputy of the municipal council, St Petersburg

Vladimir Kiveretsky, writer, publicist, St Petersburg 

Maxim Kruglov, political scientist, member of the regional council of the youth branch of the Yabloko party, senior specialist of the “political management” of RODP Yabloko

Lev Schlossberg, chair of the Pskov regional branch of RODP Yabloko, editor of the newspaper “Pskovskaya Gubernia”  

Dmitry Shusharin, candidate of history, editor of the magazine “Artbest-seller”, Moscow

Ilia Milstein, journalist 

Alexei Manannikov, president of Siberian interregional public human rights Fund “Vena-89”

Vladimir Kostyushev, Professor at the applied political science department at the St Petersburg branch of the Higher School of Economics 

Gennady Chernyavsky, head of the working group RS MOPCh at SZFO, St Petersburg 

Oleg Kozlovsky, coordinator of the movement “Oborona”, member of executive committee of the Other Russia coalition 

Anastasia Levina, doctor

Sergei Levin, pensioner

Alla Mastacheva, teacher

Alexander Rudnitsky, Novosibirsk Association of Human Rights Organizations

Vaitsman Ilia Pavlovich, Nizhniy Novgorod