Russia rights activist beaten for criticism

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A Russian human rights activist who has been a prominent government critic since the communist era was badly beaten in Moscow on Tuesday night in an attack some colleagues linked to his work.

Lev Ponomaryov, leader of the For Human Rights group, was attacked outside his Moscow home by a number of men who took his mobile phones, his daughter Yelena Liptser said.

"It was quite serious, he was hospitalised, but allowed home at about 3 a.m. As for the cause, it's difficult to know yet, whether it was linked to his work or not," she said.

The website for his organisation www.zaprava.ru was more direct: "The family and his colleagues connect the attack with his human rights activities."

"The brutal attack Tuesday on human rights lawyer Lev Ponomaryov is yet another indication of the appalling insecurity in which non-violent critics of the policies of the Russian government operate today," said Neil Hicks, international policy adviser for Human Rights First.

Hicks urged U.S. President Barack Obama to use a planned meeting on Wednesday with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in London to press the Kremlin chief for action to safeguard human rights.

Ponomaryov has criticised Russia's failure to educate young people about the Soviet Union's gulag camps and deplored the strong showing of Joseph Stalin in a recent television competition to find Russia's most popular historical figure.

"The younger generation is fed with myths about Stalin. It knows nothing about the millions who died in Gulag camps but knows well he was a strong leader who defeated (Nazi) Germany," Ponomaryov told Reuters last December.

Another veteran rights activist, Ludmila Alexeyeva of the Moscow Helsinki group told RIA news agency the attack on Ponomaryov could be linked to his active role in the newly established Solidarity opposition movement.

(Reporting by Conor Sweeney; Editing by Matthew Tostevin)