According to one of the students of the Syktyvkar Medical College, it was the students who indicated their willingness to attend a lecture concerning anti-war and anti-fascist subjects. A formal occasion to invite a social activist Igor Sazhin was the anniversary of Kristallnacht (the day of a series of coordinated attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany on the night of the 9/10th of November). On the 6th of November the chairman of the KHRC "Memorial" delivered the first lecture, which was attended by about 60 first-year students.
“The lecture was concentrated on the anti-war theme. First of all, I told about the horrors of war. In fact, it is the product of fascism. The message was that it is necessary to control all the human beastliness and animality. However, I demanded nothing from the children, left a question open and offered them to make a choice. The lecture kindled interest of the audience,” Igor Sazhin said.
Today, the social activist should have delivered one more lecture on the same topic for the third-year students. The students reached a verbal agreement with one of the curators. However, the meeting was canceled. When the students began to ask questions, the college leadership noted that Igor Sazhin wouldn’t be able to talk to students even if the HRC "Memorial" would send a written request.
“I don’t know who planned this lecture, it’s not in the plan. I don’t understand what you are talking about,” the deputy director on educational work of the college Olga Malysheva commented on the situation.
“If the students wanted to hold some activity for themselves, problems would never turn up. I don’t know why they were against this time,” one of the students said.
Igor Sazhin believes that the real cause of the cancellation could be a request from outside.
“I know the construction of education institutions, and I know that they are interested in good ethical conversations. I doubt that there was any other reason to refuse the lecture. Most probably, the leadership of the college made the decision under some external dictation. I don’t understand what kind of dictation it was. But probably it came from the government,” the social activist said.
Original: http://7x7-journal.ru/item/34436?r=komi