The Anna Politkovskaya Free Speech Association organised a church service in memorial of the brutally murdered Russian journalist, Anna Politkovskaya, at the St Sophia Church on October 7 2008.
The service was followed by a protest against the putinisation of Bulgaria in front of the Moscow House at 92 Rakovska Street.
The association said on its website it planned to voice discontent with the recent controversy about the Bulgarian journalists' telephone tapping and the planned assault against Bulgarian journalist Ognyan Stefanov. The latter the association links to a conspiracy between the Ministry of Interior and the State Agency of National Security.
Participants will sign a petition to be presented at the European Commission to seek support of freedom of speech in the Bulgarian media.
Anna Politkovskaya was famous for her poignant and persistent reporting from Chechnya and the north Caucasus region for Novaya Gazeta from the late 1990s until her assassination on October 7 2006. She published a number of critical books on corruption, Chechnya and Russia as a whole under President Vladimir Putin, her latest book called Putin's Russia.
