Moscow Court upholds the sentence passed on Lev Ponomaryov

The Tverskoy Court in Moscow has upheld the arrest for three days of the leader of the civic movement  “For Human Rights”, Lev Ponomaryov.

The Ruling from the Magistrate’s Court was handed down on 26 September, convicting him for not obeying police officers.

Amnesty International has declared Lev Ponomaryov a prisoner of conscience.

On 3 September in Moscow Lev Ponomaryov organized an action in Memory of the Victims of Beslan.  The police dispersed the meeting since the authorities had refused to give permission.

Ponomaryov’s lawyer, Anna Savitskaya has stated that the defence plans to lodge an appeal with the European Court of Human Rights. 

“What is happening now with cassation appeals into Lev Ponomaryov’s case is a total profanation of the right of appeal. The practice has become established, and this is true in almost all cases, that a person is deprived of his or her liberty immediately following a court ruling, and effectively s/he has to serve the punishment and only later has access to the appeal procedure. This is absolutely unacceptable. The failure to consider an appeal before the whole period of administrative punishment has been served is not justice, but a parody of justice, a total farce.”, lawyer Karina Moskalenko stated.