"A month has passed since the Beslan school seizure, and we can't see now why people like Zakayev can still stay in London," says a petition signed by many who rallied to mourn the Beslan victims. Activists intend to pass the petition to the country's top.
About a hundred rallied in Trafalgar Square with posters and streamers running, "Beslan, Russia, we are with you!", "No refuge to terrorists in the UK!", and "The Beslan massacre challenges the free world". Some carried portraits of Ahmad Zakayev and Omar Bahri Mohammed, British branch leader of the Al-Muhajirun, a fundamentalist Muslim organisation. Many were holding small posters with the names of children martyred in the Beslan hostage taking.
Russians made a majority at the rally. As the organisers said to RIA Novosti, there were also Poles on the gathering, people from the post-Soviet Baltics, Britons, Hindus, Sikhs and Israelis.
"No matter what country you are representing. What matters is that we are all facing one danger, and are to repulse it," said Neil Frazer.
"What happened to the Russian kids was horrible. We want to show here that we, too, are against terrorism," said Collie Jones, who had come with her two young daughters.
Some of the speakers represented the Ulster Victim Association of people who had suffered from IRA terror. Israelis protested against Palestinian terror, and people of Sri Lanka against the extremism of the Tamil Eelam Liberation Tigers.
The rally gathered many sympathising onlookers despite oppressive autumn drizzle. The crowd commemorated North Osset martyrs with two minutes' silence.
Scotland Yard dispatched a sizeable police force to provide the rallies' safety.
"People have come together here to show how they detest terrorists, and call the British top to reconsider asylum granted their envoys," a woman demonstrator said to RIA Novosti.
Ahmad Zakayev was prominent on the separatist side in the two Chechen campaigns. The first, of 1994-96, saw him second in command of the Southwest Front of Chechen separatists in control of the Urus-Martan district. He was suspected of arranging a shocking kidnap of two Christian priests who had come to the district centre, village of the same name, to negotiate.
Russia indicted Zakayev in absence with terror act masterminding, lawless executions and tortures, and hostage taking.
