“Anastasia Baburova. #Women’s History Night,” Central Petersburg, May 22, 2018. Photo by the Russian Reader

Marchers Detained at Markelov and Baburova Memorial Event in Moscow
Mediazona
January 19, 2019

Police have detained people attending a march in Moscow marking the tenth anniversary of the murders of human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov and Novaya Gazeta reporter Anastasia Baburova, Kommersant reporter Alexander Chernykh has reported on his Telegram channel.

According to Chernykh, police have detained journalist Igor Yasin, who was carrying a rainbow-colored flag, and five other people. The reasons for their arrests are unknown. The march has been halted.

OVD Info has reported that four people have been detained. Aside from Yasin, the detainees include Nikolai Kretov, Dmitry Borisenko, and Mikhail Komrakov.

Komrakov told OVD Info that when he was detained, a policeman said to him, “If it were up to me, I would kill you.”

According to Kretov, policemen hit him after he was put in a paddy wagon.

The Markelov and Baburova memorial march began at two o’clock on Tverskaya Boulevard and was scheduled to end with the laying of flowers at the spot where they were murdered on Prechistenka Street.

On January 19, 2009, Nikita Tikhonov, a member of the Russian neo-Nazi organization BORN (Combat Organization of Russian Nationalists), shot and killed Markelov and Baburova in downtown Moscow in broad daylight. Tikhonov and his accomplice Yevgenia Khasis were subsequently convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment and eighteen years in prison, respectively.

Translated by the Russian Reader