The group says in a statement that the Russian authorities' prosecution of the two men was riddled with procedural irregularities and allegations of mistreatment.
The men -- Ravil Gumerov and Timur Ishmuratov -- were convicted of using explosives to attack a gas pipeline in the Tatarstan region of Russia in January, 2005, and were handed prison terms of 11 and 13 years, respectively, in May.
(with material from AFP)
Russia And The West
(epa)
COOPERATION, CONFLICT, CONFRONTATION: Relations between Russia and the West are notoriously volatile. "To see the kind of relationship that presidents Bush and Putin have developed and to see Russia firmly anchored in the West, that's really a dream of 300 years, not just of the post-Cold War era," then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said in May 2002.
But observers have increasingly called into question the extent of the shared values between Russia and the West, particularly on issues relating to the transformations going on in other former Soviet countries.
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