Internet community to help Bakhmina

Anyone can sign the petition to President Medvedev

Izbrannoye, 8 October 2008

A petition to President Medvedev to pardon Svetlana Bakhmina has been opened for signatures on the Internet. Those behind this initiative have no links with her lawyers and do not know either Bakhmina or her family. They represent no parties or movements. It is a deed of those who want the country they live in to show compassion towards its citizens.

The invitation to take part begins:

“Friends,

“Svetlana Bakhmina, a legal specialist with Yukos, was recently again refused release on parole. She has spent four years in a penal colony in Mordovia, more than half the sentence she was given for offences under Articles 160 and 198 of the RF Criminal Code. Her two little sons, 7-year-old Fedya and 9-year-old Petya, wait for her at home. Now Svetlana is seven months pregnant.

“Usually even our courts, which are not always the most humane, agree in such cases either to parole or to defer punishment until the children are old enough. In this case something has gone wrong. Either reason, conscience and compassion have come up against the sacred demands of the Yukos affair or else such concepts are infrequent visitors to the Zubovo-Polyansky district court in Mordovia.

“We can complain or privately curse an inhuman system. We can simply shrug our shoulders and continue to live in our country, bringing up our children, working and amusing ourselves — we can put up with it. Or we can do something.”

That “something” is a petition attached to a letter to President Medvedev, requesting him to pardon Svetlana Bakhmina. The Constitution of the Russian Federation gives him such a right and he can make use of it. “Even if you did not vote for Dmitry Medvedev”, write those behind the petition, “he is the president of our country and he has the constitutional right to pardon Svetlana.”

The letter to the Russian president can be found on a specially-created site, www.bakhmina.ru .

A note follows the letter to the president: “It is very important that as many people as possible hear about the chance to sign this letter. Probably many consider that Svetlana should serve her sentence in full, no matter what. That’s also a civic viewpoint that should be respected. Let’s give as many of our friends and acquaintances as possible the chance to make their choice: let’s send the information to everyone who will understand and not treat it as spam.”