FOR YOUR AND OUR FREEDOM!

JOURNALISTS OF THE NTV, WE ARE WITH YOU!

Today, here, the day when our comrade Dmitry Neverovsky tragically died...

Moscow, April 4, 2001.

Dear friends, journalists of the NTV, all those who came today to Ostankino to support the freedom of speech in Russia: your and our freedom!

Many words are not necessary to explain why we are here today.

We are here because the capture of the NTV by the KGB-Gasprom sondercommande would signify the end of era of the freedom of speech and final establishment of monopoly of the regime to inform the citizens about the events in the country, including the interpretation of irresponsible and criminal Chechen adventure.

Our comrade Dima Neverovsky would sure come with us to Ostankino as he came in August 1991 to the Russian "White House". But he isn't with us. Today at night he tragically died in Obninsk in the fire in his own house...

27-year physicist from Obninsk, active member of the Radical Party and the Antimilitarist Radical Association (ARA), Dmitry Neverovsky often was a guest in the television studios of Ostankino. For hundreds of thousands of young Russian citizens, for millions televiewers he became a living symbol of struggle for the right to conscientious objection and affirmation of conscience, struggle against criminal Chechen war and militarism.

His open conscientious objection to protest against the Chechen war, 146 days which he spent last year in the cell of Kaluga investigation isolation ward on a charge of "evading the military service", his long judicial epopee made him almost a national hero.

But besides that, he was our friend.

And we know that today he would be here, together with us, to support you and your struggle. For your and our freedom. For freedom.