Moscow officials are planning to remove a plaque installed in honor of slain opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, the state-run TASS news agency reported.
The plaque was mounted on Thursday on the house where Nemtsov lived before his murder on Feb. 27, 2015. He was gunned down while walking home in the evening across the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge next to the Kremlin.
Opposition politician Ilya Yashin said the memorial plaque was installed lawfully as a “citizens’ initiative.”
“The majority of this house’s residents supported this decision,” Yashin wrote in a Facebook post.
But city
officials believe the plaque should be removed because it was installed
illegally,
TASS reported, citing a cultural heritage department official. “There
is nothing legal in the situation with Nemtsov, only lawlessness,” said
the unidentified official from the department of monuments, memorial
signs and plaques.
The Moscow City Duma will convene to discuss the plaque’s removal, radio station Ekho Moskvy reported early Friday, citing the deputy head of the commission on monumental art, Lev Lavryonov.
In November 2016, officials in the city of Nizhny Novgorod approved the installation of a plaque on the house where Nemtsov lived when he was governor of the region from 1991 to 1997. The city’s mayor said last summer that public opinion is divided on whether to follow through on the memorial plans.
The Moscow Mayor’s Office reportedly rejected a September 2016 petition with 30,000 signatures asking for a small plaque to be erected on the Bolshoi Moskvoretsky Bridge.
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