Russia's children's rights commissioner Pavel Astakhov has urged Russian national Rimma Salonen, who is fighting with the Finnish court for the right to be with her seven-year-old son, to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
Earlier on Monday Finnish court has refused Salonen's request for custody of her child, Anton, granting it to the boy's Finnish father, Paavo Salonen.
The seven-year-old boy has been at the center of a Russian-Finnish diplomatic row after his parents divorced and his mother took him back to Russia. In 2009, his Finnish father illegally took him from Russia to Finland with the help of a Finnish diplomat.
"This decision [by Finnish court] deserves a profound regret. Finnish authorities continue to deprive Rimma from the opportunity to stay with her son," Astakhov said, adding the mother should keep on fighting.
"Rimma unlike the others is law-abiding. She is absolutely self-restrained and patient...she does not invoke any demands and politicize the situation," Astakhov went on.
The court allowed the Russian mother to see her son only twice a month in the presence of police and social workers.
MOSCOW, January 10 (RIA Novosti)
