German parliament president criticizes lawmaker's detention at Russian gay rights protest

Germany's parliament president expressed concern to his Russian counterpart Wednesday over the weekend detention of a German opposition lawmaker at a gay rights demonstration in Moscow.

Photo: German parliament president criticizes lawmaker's detention at Russian gay rights protest

Green party lawmaker Volker Beck has said police beat him and others and took their passports away Sunday, in what he said authorities called a "security measure."

Parliament President Norbert Lammert, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives, voiced "the dismay of the Bundestag," or lower house of parliament, in a letter to Russian speaker Boris Gryzlov, a parliament statement said.

The demonstrators tried to present a letter signed by 40 European lawmakers to the office of Moscow's mayor, appealing at the city's ban on a march they wanted to conduct. Lammert said that should be viewed as "free expression of opinion."

He said he hoped a Russian parliament working group on the protection of minorities' democratic rights would look into the case.

Marco Cappato, a European Parliament deputy from Italy, was also among those detained on Sunday.