The Russian authorities have been filmed apparently using a sedative to silence a particularly vocal critic among angry relatives of the Kursk sailors.

The incident happened during a heated meeting between the relatives and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov at the Kursk's base in Vidyayevo, near Murmansk, on Wednesday.





Video footage shows a woman apparently trying to calm a grieving woman who is being restrained by uniformed naval personnel as she demands to know the truth. "Why did he die? He served for 25 years! I'll never forgive you!" the grieving relative shouted. The woman who appeared to be giving first aid is then seen holding a syringe, which she appears to plunge into the grieving woman behind her back.





Seconds later the widow - still being restrained by naval officers - collapses, apparently under the influence of a powerful sedative. The footage was shot by a Murmansk television cameraman, Alexander Glokov. He told the BBC that soon after the incident the authorities ejected him from the hall. The hall was packed with naval officers in anticipation of some emotional scenes, he said. The BBC correspondent Orla Guerin says the incident carried echoes of a past from which Russia has not yet fully escaped.





She says the woman may have needed medical help, but the drug was apparently administered without her consent. Dissidents in the Soviet Union were sometimes given powerful drugs normally only reserved for people suffering genuine mental illness. Neither officials of the Russian Northern Fleet nor the Russian Defence Ministry were willing to comment on the incident, our correspondent says. A Russian embassy official, Vladimir Andreyev, told the BBC it was "nonsense" to claim that Russia was reverting to old traditions of silencing dissent. He said the "wrong medical practice may have been used in this case," but it was "not a violation of human rights".



