comment on the article: When the public pressure is high and it is more comfortable to show “understanding” this does not mean necessary that this TEMPORARY decision will have a long future… There is no need to relax and hope the ones in power will now do the opposite of what they have done till now… and of course this does not mean anything related to the prisoners, as long as there is not a pressure to make it necessary for the state to release them. This might get even harder now, as some people who trust the word of this decision will maybe act less now, as the image is fullfilled…
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source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/27/world/europe/27russia.html
MOSCOW — For years, environmentalists have risked arrests and sometimes beatings by the police and masked plainclothes thugs in their efforts to halt the construction of a highway linking Moscow to St. Petersburg that they say would destroy the Khimki Forest, one of the few remaining in the Moscow region.
Typically in Russia, such efforts lead to little but holding cells or worse for proponents of a cause. But supporters of the Khimki Forest were handed a surprising victory on Thursday when President Dmitri A. Medvedev reacted to the public outcry. He postponed construction of the highway. “Given the number of appeals, I have made a decision,” Mr. Medvedev said in a message on his video blog. “I order the government to halt the implementation of the decision to build this highway and conduct further civic and expert discussions.”
He added, “These have already been conducted, but taking into account heightened resonance this issue has had in society, I do not see anything wrong with returning to these discussions.”
The triumph came not a moment too soon for environmentalists and their supporters. Workers had already begun to clear sections of the forest this summer and had planned to resume in October.
“This has flabbergasted us. It was completely unexpected,” said Sergei Ageyev, a member of the environmental group leading the opposition to the highway. “It is simply a stunning victory for civil society.”
The decision does not definitively halt construction, but was nevertheless surprising given the strong-arm tactics employed against opponents. During protests in the forest this summer, gangs of masked men attacked environmentalists, beating several. The police have detained others.
Mikhail Beketov, an investigative journalist and outspoken opponent of the highway, was savagely attacked by unidentified men in November 2008 and is now severely brain damaged.
At issue is the fate of a 2,500-acre oak forest, north of Moscow in the town of Khimki. Vladimir V. Putin, the current prime minister and Mr. Medvedev’s mentor, signed an order for the construction of a new highway traversing the forest when he was still president.
Top officials in the federal government and the powerful governor of the Moscow region have backed the idea as the simplest and most cost effective way to strengthen transportation links between Moscow and St. Petersburg, Russia’s two largest cities.
Few dispute the need. Currently, the trip by car is a treacherous 430-mile drive on a potholed road populated with aggressive truck drivers and bribe-seeking traffic police officers. The journey can take 10 hours or more.
Environmentalists have called for building the new highway close to the existing road, which runs through an industrial zone. Building the highway through the forest, they say, would disrupt the ecological balance of Moscow, which depends on a shrinking belt of green space around it to help filter air pollution.
“This forest is our air,” Yevgenia Chirikova, the leader of a protest movement, said in an interview at a recent demonstration. “If this highway goes through the Khimki Forest, a hole will be punched in the protective ring.”
This summer’s 100-degree temperatures, along with the huge wildfires that blanketed Moscow and the surrounding region with noxious smoke, seem to have persuaded officials to look anew at the arguments of environmentalists, especially since their calls to save the forest seem to have resonated with many residents of this city and beyond.
More than 2,000 people gathered in central Moscow for a protest against the construction plans last weekend, an exceptionally large turnout here. And last month, hundreds of people raided the Khimki mayor’s office, throwing rocks and smoke bombs in retaliation for earlier attacks on environmentalists defending the forest.
Environmentalists might also have gained a little help from Bono, the U2 frontman. He was in Moscow for a concert on Wednesday, and, after a meeting with Mr. Medvedev, the Interfax news agency reported, offered the Khimki Forest protectors his support.
