25 Dec 11 | Russia
According to opposition leaders, at least 120,000 people gathered in the centre of Moscow on 24 December to demand new and fair parliamentary elections, and that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin retire. Police report that 29,000 were present at the rally.
The rally yesterday was the follow up to what was the biggest rally in post-Soviet Russia held on 10 December. According to the protesters, the 4 December parliamentary elections were fraudulent, that is why they called for a new election to be held. They also demanded the immediate release of political prisoners, allow for the registration of opposition parties, and the resignation of Vladimir Churov, chair of the Central Election Commission.
The European Parliament supported the demands of protesters, and passed a resolution calling for a new election as well as an investigation into charges of alleged fraud in the election. While Russian officials rejected both demands, President Dmitry Medvedev recently proposed to pass a law simplifying parties’ registration and to restore governors’ elections (which were stopped in 2005)—but only after 2013. People’s Freedom Party cofounder Boris Nemtsov welcomed Medvedev’s proposals, but said they were not enough, and said that the reforms would not have come without the protests.
During yesterday’s rally, politicians, musicians, public figures and journalists all expressed their concerns about allegations of fraud in the election, and called on people to unite as election watchdogs for the presidential elections in March. Former Minister of Finance Alexey Kudrin also delivered a speech at the rally, demanding a fair election, echoing the demands of average citizens.
The speakers suggested that people create working groups or, as Russian popular writer Boris Akunin said, a nongovernmental organisation called “Fair Russia” to prevent Vladimir Putin from becoming president. Akunin asked the crowd if they wanted to see Putin as president, and if they liked his reaction to the 10 December rally, and his questions were met with whistling from the crowd. Following the first rally, Putin alleged that the protesters were actually paid to attend the rally.
According to Akunin, the demands from the 10 December rally “were the minimal conditions” of protesters, and failure of authorities to comply with protester’s demands showed that “there is no use to put up with Putin’s regime.” Art Troitsky, Russia’s leading music critic stressed the significance of mystery around Putin’s family, and said that because he hides his family, he lives like an “illegal spy” and is not to be trusted.
The protesters were from a wide range of backgrounds, including nationalists, antifascists, communists, and liberals, did not represent any one political party. All came together to add one more demand to the initial requirements from the 10 December protests. They called for a campaign to prevent Vladimir Putin from coming to power in the 2012 presidential elections, as well as heavily monitoring the election for fraud.
25 Dec 11 | Egypt
Egyptian blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah (@alaa) has reportedly been released, after being detained since 30 October. Abdel Fattah’s sister, Mona Seif (@monasosh) sent a twitter message saying that Abdel Fattah will be released. While Abdel Fattah has been released, the charges against him have not been dropped, according to his father and lawyer, Seif Hamad (@seifhamad). More updates to come.
2:43 PM: Mona Seif posted a picture of Abdel Fattah’s official release, where he is holding his newborn son, Khalid.
2:45 PM: Mona Seif tweeted that the now-released Abdel Fattah is headed to Tahrir Square with supporters.
23 Dec 11 | Asia and Pacific, Index Index, minipost
Chinese pro-democracy activist Chen Wei has been sentence to nine years’ imprisonment for inciting subversion over four essays he wrote and published online calling for freedom of speech. He was detained in February this year amid an intense government crackdown in response to anonymous online calls for protests in China inspired by the uprisings in the Middle East. Chen has previously served time in prison for participating in the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations in Beijing.
22 Dec 11 | Uncategorized
Has what one might term the racist pendulum swung too far? From callous indifference to politically correct obsession? One asks the question, plainly, in the wake of the accusations made against Luis Suárez of Liverpool and John Terry of Chelsea. Neither is remotely a plaster saint. Each has what the coppers call form.
Terry has been heavily fined for coarse behaviour at Heathrow, jeering at American passengers devastated by the atrocity of 9/11, and famously urinated into a glass in a nightclub. Suárez, in the past, has bitten an opponent while playing in Holland for Ajax, punched out what would have been a winning goal for Ghana against his Uruguay team in the last World Cup and exulted when, having been sent off, the resulting penalty was missed. There seems no doubt that he called Manchester United’s Patrice Evra “un negrito”.
Well out of order, as they say, but was it really worth an eight-match suspension, plus (negligible for a football star) a £40,000 fine? Terry, meanwhile, is being prosecuted, not like Suárez by the Football Association but by the Metropolitan police, after a TV viewer reported his stream of alleged abuse against Queens Park Rangers’ Anton Ferdinand. Ferdinand says he didn’t hear it and Terry swears that it was taken out of context.
Long ago, I was the first senior football journalist to take up the cudgels on behalf of black players and have the short story to prove it. “Black Magic” concerned a young player discriminated against by a racist coach who had the last laugh when he joined another club and scored against his old team. Initially published in the Evening News, it was reprinted, to my delight, in the Voice.
My long-standing friend Paul Davis, a splendid black inside forward with Arsenal who should have played for England, has published a telling piece describing the racist abuse he first suffered when he himself was a young player.
I myself got into hot PC water when daring to say on an Irish radio programme that young black players from single parent families who suddenly found themselves millionaires had a difficult time of it.
“Gira e rigira”, it turns and turns again, as the Italians say. But why Alan Hansen should abase himself for using the word “coloured”, ask me not. We must all tread so carefully.
Brian Glanville is a football writer and novelist. He is a columnist for the Sunday Times and World Soccer. His novel, The Rise of Gerry Logan, recently republished by Faber, was described by Franz Beckenbauer as “the best football book ever written”.
