Human rights activist attacked

MOSCOW – A prominent human rights activist and former member of the Russian parliament was beaten outside his home late Tuesday in the latest in a series of attacks on opposition figures in Moscow.

Lev Ponomaryov, 67, leader of the organization For Human Rights, said he had just stepped out of his car when a stranger asked him to light a cigarette and someone else struck him in the head. He said he was knocked to the ground and kicked and beaten by two or three men until a doorman rescued him.

The assailants said nothing during the assault and made no attempt to rob him, Ponomaryov said after being released from a hospital Wednesday.

“It was an ordered attack,” he said. “It’s connected with my human rights activities. I’ve been involved in a few sensitive issues lately.”

A Soviet-era dissident who was elected to parliament in the early 1990s, Ponomaryov has worked to expose abuses in the Russian prison system, and he helped establish the Solidarity democratic opposition movement last year.

In recent weeks, he has been outspoken in his criticism of the government’s prosecution of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the jailed oil tycoon and Kremlin foe facing new charges in a second trial that opened in Moscow on Tuesday.

Police said the attack was under investigation.