FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Russian-speaking Americans supportive of movement for change in Russia gather for first national convention
Andrew Grigorenko
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Xenia Grubstein, 646 309 0643
Email: xenia.g...@gmail.com, headqu...@amrusrights.org
Russian-speaking Americans supportive of movement for change in Russia gather for first national convention
May 2, New York—The American Russian-Speaking Association for Civil & Human Rights (ARA) will be holding its first national convention on Sunday, May 6, at 12 pm, at 55 Exchange Place in New York. The title of the convention agenda is “Russian-Speaking America on the Rise: Awakening and Empowerment Through the ‘Fair Vote for Russia’ Movement.” Participants will discuss the effect that supporting the opposition movement in Russia has had on on the Russian-speaking community in the United States.
Following the convention, participants will hold a rally in support of the massive protest actions happening on the same day, the day before Vladimir Putin’s presidential inauguration, in Russia. The New York rally will take place at 55 Exchange Place at 3 pm, then it will continue at the Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the UN (136 East 67 Street) at 4 pm.
The Association was founded in February 2012 by the participant in American rallies for fair elections and for the release of political prisoners in Russia. The rallies took place between December 2011 and March 2012 in Boston, Chicago, Kansas City, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Washington, DC. The founding of ARA in New York February 2012 was greeted by senior leader of Russia's civil and human rights movement Ludmila Alexeeva, who leads the Moscow Helsinki Group and is a member of Russia’s Presidential Human Rights Council. ARA currently has representatives or affiliates in 19 US states and the District of Columbia.
Representatives of ARA’s partner organizations – such as the Institute of Modern Russia; the Democratic Russia Committee, the International Association of Former Soviet Political Prisoners and Victims of the Communist Regime, the Russian-Speaking Community Council of Manhattan & the Bronx, Wake Up Russia!, and Fair Vote for Russia regional groups – will take part in the event.
The conference will cover ARA’s activities in support of congressional action to replace the Jackson-Vanick Amendment with the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act, as well as the situation with the payment of pensions by post-Soviet governments to their former employees currently residing in the United States, including the association’s position on H.R. 2494: Former Soviet Union State Pension Fairness Act of 2011.
Speakers at the convention will include prominent leaders of Russia’s civil and human rights movement speaking by video from Moscow, as well as ARA’s founders and leaders. Speakers will also include Alexey Semyonov, President of The Andrei Sakharov Foundation; Dr. Alexander Bolonkin, former Soviet political prisoner and subsequently senior researcher at NASA; and Andrew Grigorenko, President of the General Petro Grigorenko Foundation.
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Andrew P. Grigorenko
President of General Petro Grigorenko Foundation
www.grigorenko.org