{"id":92281,"date":"2011-12-07T11:07:26","date_gmt":"2011-12-07T11:07:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/uncut.indexoncensorship.org\/?p=2721"},"modified":"2011-12-07T11:07:26","modified_gmt":"2011-12-07T11:07:26","slug":"russia-cracks-down-on-anti-putin-protests-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/?p=92281","title":{"rendered":"Russia cracks down on anti-Putin protests"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thousands of people have taken part in\u00a0opposition rallies<\/a>\u00a0against Vladimir Putin’s United Russia after allegations of widespread electoral fraud.<\/p>\n

Police and anti-Putin protesters have clashed every day since the\u00a0parliamentary elections<\/a>\u00a0on 4 December.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of\u00a0people protested<\/a>\u00a0against election fraud directly on elections day; most were detained by police. There were 8-10 thousand people (two thousand according to the police) in the centre of Moscow the day after elections.<\/p>\n

Opposition leaders Ilya Yashin and Alexey Navalny were detained, as well as journalists from Reuters, Bloomberg, The New Times magazine, \u201cIzvestia\u201d newspaper and Lenta.ru news agency. The journalists were released, but Yashin and Navalny were sentenced to 15 days of arrest for \u201cfailure to follow a lawful order of policeman\u201d. Both claim they didn\u2019t break the law.<\/p>\n

On 6 December,\u00a0there\u00a0was a rally<\/a>\u00a0at Triumphalnaya Square in Moscow with more than 1,000 protesters. People chanted \u201cPutin thief\u201d, \u201cRussia without Putin\u201d, \u201cIt\u2019s a shame to be in NASHI\u201d.<\/p>\n

NASHI, a pro-government youth movementallied with two other pro-Kremlin organisations \u2013 \u201cStal\u201d and \u201cUnited Russia\u2019s Young Guard\u201d \u2013 celebrated the victory of United Russia in the parliamentary elections. Seventeen thousand members of these movements gathered\u00a0at Moscow centre on 6 December. About two thousand of them went to Moscow\u2019s Triumphalnaya Square to prevent anti-Putin protesters from holding a rally by standing there and shouting out \u201cPutin, Medvedev, victory\u201d.<\/p>\n

Between 250 and 300 protesters were detained, including Yabloko party leader Sergey Mitrokhin; People\u2019s Freedom Party leader Boris Nemtsov; Other Russia activist Eduard Limonov; Oleg Orlov , head of the Memorial<\/a> human rights organisation; and journalists Bozhena Rynska of Gazeta.ru and Alexandr Chernykh of Kommersant.<\/p>\n

Over 50,000 Ministry of Interior troops are located in Moscow together with policemen. Protesters and journalists have complained of their brutality and\u00a0aggression from soldiers.<\/p>\n

Similar protests<\/a>\u00a0were held in Saint-Petersburg\u00a0 by about 800 protesters, 200 of whom were detained whilst Rostov-na-Donu, saw 300 protesters on the streets, 15 of whom were detained.<\/p>\n

Russian TV reported on the actions of pro-government movements’ as if they were the only ones held. Pro-Putin demonstrators were described as “citizens tired of marginal groups they don’t support”, in coverage reminiscent of Breznev-era propaganda.<\/p>\n

Activists were disappointed by a controversial statement made by Pavel Gusev, the leader of Journalists\u2019 Union in Moscow, \u00a0and public council of Moscow police, Olga Kostina. They accused journalists covering the anti-Putin demonstrations of \u201cbeing biased and lacking objectivity\u201d and \u201cbringing difficulties to law enforcement authorities\u201d.<\/p>\n

In the meantime US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton expressed \u201cserious concerns<\/a>\u00a0about the conduct of the election\u201d. Catherine Ashton, the EU\u2019s High representative for foreign affairs and security policy expressed the same concerns commenting on a \u201clack of media impartiality, lack of separation between party and state, and the harassment of independent monitoring attempts\u201d during parliamentary elections.<\/p>\n

A big opposition rally against election fraud\u00a0is expected on 10 December at Moscow Revolution Square just near the Kremlin. Moscow officials have authorised the rally, but troops remain in the city.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thousands of people have taken part in\u00a0opposition rallies\u00a0against Vladimir Putin’s United Russia after allegations of widespread electoral fraud. Police and anti-Putin protesters have clashed every day since the\u00a0parliamentary elections\u00a0on 4 December. Hundreds of\u00a0people protested\u00a0against election fraud directly on elections day; most were detained by police. There were 8-10 thousand people (two thousand according to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":90,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[13183,13186,13187,306,13188,7719,212,13189,13048],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92281"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/90"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=92281"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92281\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=92281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=92281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=92281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}