26/11/2007 President
Strasbourg, 26.11.2007 – “I am concerned about the arrests of opposition leaders in Moscow and St Petersburg over the weekend,” said René van der Linden, President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). “Forceful police action of this kind, ahead of an election, is not appropriate.”
The President also expressed his backing for today’s call by the Chair of PACE’s Legal Affairs Committee Dick Marty for swift identification and punishment of those who abducted and beat Oleg Orlov, President of the Russian human rights NGO “Memorial”, and three television journalists in Ingushetia on Saturday.