Critics Scoff as Kremlin Erects Monument to the Repressed<br />30, 2017<br />MOSCOW — President Vladimir V. Putin on Monday called the unveiling of the first Kremlin-promoted monument to the victims of political repression an important step toward preventing oppression in Russia,<br />but critics accused the government of hypocrisy given the continued lack of political rights.<br />The museum itself has been picketed by opponents who label the entire Gulag experience "fiction." "The fact<br />that it is taking place by presidential decree and it is supported by ordinary citizens, who gave money for the monument, indicates to me that this is a new point of reckoning," Mr. Romanov said.<br />"The current Russian government, in sponsoring the opening of the monument, is trying to pretend<br />that political repression is a thing long since past," the petition read.<br />"We state with certainty that Russia’s current political prisoners are worthy of our help<br />and attention no less than the victims of the Soviet regime are worthy of our memory and respect." Among those who signed were famous Soviet-era dissidents, including Aleksandr Podrabinek, Pavel Litvinov and Vladimir Bukovsky, as well as Mustafa Dzhemilev, a longstanding Tatar leader in Crimea who was exiled after opposing Russia’s 2014 annexation.<br />" she said at a news conference before the unveiling, "it will mean our state says: ‘Terror is a crime.<br />that When this monument is unveiled by the top figure in the state, being created on behalf of the state,<br />Lebedev said that The first thing you want from them is to make complete lists, to try to understand the full scale, to name all the names,
