Protestors in Kiev: No Extradition of Chechen Refugee Lyoma Susarov.

Activists of the ‘No borders’ anarchist initiative, ‘European wave’ human rights organisation, and other protesters picketed the building of Ukraine’s Prosecutor-General’s Office in defence of Lyoma Susarov, a refugee from Chechenia yesterday.

Mr. Susarov, who was arrested on request from Russia, is still kept in Kiev’s Lukyanovskaya Prison. Russian authorities insist on his extradition to Russia, but the consideration of his case in Ukraine is now suspended due to intervention from human rights activists and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Office.

The picketing started at 12:30 yesterday and went on for about an hour. The protesters had prepared and demonstrated four information stands with quotes from international treaties prohibiting extradition of refugees to countries where torture is used on massive scale.

The other documents on the stands concerned the essence of the Susarov case and the fates of other Chechens earlier extradited from Ukraine to Russia. They included some materials used in one of the last articles by Anna Politkovskaya.

A big portrait of Lyoma Susarov could be seen at the fence of a square opposite to the Prosecutor’s Office building. Other photographs of Susarov and Politkovskaya were on the stands.

The protestors held two black placards in Ukrainian – ‘Stop the conveyer of extraditions!’ and ‘Freedom to Lyoma Susarov!’ – and a black anarchist flag.

Before the picketing finished, the protestors read the text of their statement through a loud-speaker. The statement, given to the Prosecutor’s Office earlier, demanded to reject Russian request for Susarov’s extradition and release him from jail.

About 30 people took part in the picketing. There were no problems with Ukrainian police. Over a dozen journalists were also present, including a 1+1 TV camera crew. Attention of dozens of passing strangers was drawn by the demonstration.

Susarov’s lawyer and human rights activists, including Vladimir Chemeris and ‘European wave’ members, organized a press conference on the problem of Susarov’s extradition after the picketing. It started at 14:30 in the office of ‘Ukrainskie Novosty’ news agency. Four Ukrainean TV channels were represented among the journalists.

Kiev, 31 August 2007