MOSCOW, October 30 (RIA Novosti) - Over a thousand people have gathered in central Moscow to remember victims of political repression in Russia, the Interior Ministry said Sunday.
Public figures, deputies of the state and city legislatures, and leaders of political movements spoke at a meeting held near the Solovetsky Stone on Lubyanka Square.
According to official figures, from 1921 to 1953 more than four million people in the Soviet Union became victims of political repression, and of these around 800,000 were executed. In the 1950s-1960s, over 500,000 Soviet citizens were rehabilitated.
On the initiative of the Moscow Memorial human rights center, the Solovetsky Stone was brought from the former Solovky (Solovetsky) special regime camp to Moscow in 1990. On the decision of the Moscow City Council, the Solovetsky Stone was placed on Lubyanka Square as a memorial to victims of political repression.
According to data from the Russian General Prosecutor's Office, since 1992 prosecutors have reviewed more than 600,000 criminal cases involving around 930,000 individuals accused of counter-revolution and other crimes against the state, and legally rehabilitated around 658,000 of them.
