MOSCOW, January 19 (RIA Novosti) – Hundreds of people rallied in downtown Moscow on Saturday to mark the 2009 killings of a human rights lawyer and a journalist.
Prominent lawyer Stanislav Markelov, 34, and reporter of opposition-minded Novaya Gazeta newspaper Anastasia Baburova, 25, were gunned down after a press conference just a short distance from the Christ the Savior Cathedral on January 19, 2009. The killings marked a continuing battle between nationalist and anti-fascist groups in Russia.
Nikolai Tikhonov, 29, and Yevgenia Khasis, 24, members of a radical neo-Nazi nationalist group, were jailed over the murders, which made headlines all over the world and once again highlighted the dangers faced by journalists and human rights activists in modern Russia.
The police estimated that some 500 people attended that Saturday rally braving the frost, while some news reports put the number around 1,000. The demonstrators, many of whom are anti-fascist activists, marched down Gogolevsky Boulevard to the murder scene carrying flowers and portraits of Baburova and Markelov. No arrests were reported.
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