Do not support their hypocrisy!

31 October 201726 November 2021 / editors (JC)

It is immoral to support the hypocrisy of the Russian authorities

An appeal by 37 former political prisoners
concerning today’s opening of a monument in Moscow

As former political prisoners and participants in the Democratic Movement in the Soviet Union, we consider the opening in Moscow of a monument to the “victims of political repression” [The Wall of Sorrow] to be untimely and hypocritical. A monument is a tribute to the past, yet acts of political repression in Russia not only continue – they are increasing.

In sponsoring the opening of the monument, the present Russian regime is pretending that acts of political repression are a thing of the distant past: the victims of such political repression, therefore, may be commemorated. We believe that today’s political prisoners in Russia are no less deserving of our help and attention than the respect and remembrance we owe to the victims of the Soviet regime.

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Putin unveils monument in Moscow

31 October 20179 December 2020 / editors (JC)

Amid controversy over his own methods of maintaining control over Russia, President Vladimir Putin has unveiled a memorial dedicated to victims of Soviet-era government repression and said the years of suffering at the hands of the state must never be forgotten.

Putin was speaking at the opening ceremony for the Wall Of Sorrow on 30 October 2017 as part of the official Day Of Remembrance For Victims Of Political Repression — an event first held in 1991, the year the Soviet Union ceased to exist. […] Some one hundred people — mainly elderly citizens, human rights activists, and city officials — attended the ceremony (reports Radio Liberty)

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The view from above (29 October 2017)

31 October 201717 December 2020 / editors (JC)

Two last shots of Sunday’s unofficial commemoration, “Restoring the Names”. Someone took these and many other photos from the viewing platform of the toy shop Detsky Mir across Lubyanka Square (see https://www.facebook.com/Memorial.International/?hc_ref=ARRrH5pwXB-ynweSTfLoh5aK8Fk6QbY_9HGh–pFEZODZ3krh5kAP4Sstx-Ym4P7-oY)

Behind the hoardings stands the pre-Revolutionary Polytechnical Museum, where lectures were read and poetry recitals were given — by Vladimir Mayakovsky and Osip Mandelstam among others.

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