Activists in Russia are campaigning for the release of Valentin Urusov, a miner who has been sentenced to six years’ hard labour after recruiting his workmates to a trade union.
The campaign was revitalised in February 2011, when a demonstration was held in Moscow demanding Valentin’s release, on St Valentine’s day. Meanwhile his lawyers have applied for a supervisory review of his case.
The demand for Urusov to be freed has been taken up by trade unionists all over Europe. In the UK, the National Union of Mineworkers is supporting Urusov, and its 2010 biennial conference approved protests to Russian president Dmitry Medvedev over the case. Here is a leaflet the union has published: http://spirani.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/urusov.pdf
The legal arguments about the way that Urusov was framed up are set out in this article, from the Socialist Lawyer magazine: http://spirani.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/sl55-urusov1.pdf
A campaign group has been set up in London to support Urusov. Details are on its Facebook page here (you do NOT have to be a Facebook subscriber to view it):
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=172737769104
An appeal from the Institute for Collective Action in Moscow is here: you have to scroll down a little to find the bit in English:
