In Defense of Political Prisoners in the CIS States and the Baltic States

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the formation of bourgeois nationalist states on the territory of the Union republics, a new wave of unlimited repression by these regimes against their citizens has begun. Fighters for Socialism have been arrested, condemned in court and put in jail with sentences of many years.

Since 1999 the "Committee for the Defence of Political Prisoners – Fighters for Socialism" is active in former Soviet Union for the liberation of these young people. They are Nadeshda Raks, Larisa Romanova, Olga Nevskaya and Igor Gubkin in Russia. Andrei Yakovenko, Igor Danilov, Ilya Romanov, Bogdan Zinchenko, Alexander Smirnov in Ukraine, and many, many others.

The Second Word Congress of the International Council for Friendship and Solidarity with Soviet People supports these youth, who have been falsely accused and very often denied the most essential rights of defence. Some of them have been tortured during the interrogation, especially in the so-called Odessa affair. Igor Danilov was submitted to electric shocks, and nearly suffocated in a gas mask. Sergei Berdiugin died in his cell, handcuffed to the bed. The Ukrainian Court pronounced verdicts from 8 to 14 years of imprisonment.

The International Council for Friendship and Solidarity with Soviet People supports also the cause of all other progressive, democratic and revolutionary political prisoners, all over the world, in the jails of fascism and imperialism. We support the heroic five Cuban prisoners in the USA - we support the resistance in Turkish prisons and among the detained Palestinian fighters. We condemn the shameless and inhuman practices in Guantanamo, and we sustain Mumia Abu Jamal, the prisoners in India, Spain and the so-called International Court of Justice in The Hague.

We demand immediate and unconditional release for all democratic, progressive and revolutionary prisoners!

We ask that all readers send letters to the prisoners and a copy to the committee address:

Committee to Defend Political Prisoners Fighting fur Socialism
105062 Moscow
B.Kharitonevski per. Kv. 10
Russia

Send letters to the authorities of the concerned former USSR republics.

Send letters of protest to President Putin and to the Chief Prosecutor of the Russian Federation, Moscow, Russia