4 Feb 2012 | Russia
One month ahead of presidential polls, tens of thousands of people marched through the centre of Moscow today to protest Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s expected return to the Kremlin for a third presidential term.
The stop-Putin movement staged its third major rally since disputed 4 December parliamentary polls. Protesters rallied together and accepted a set of demands read aloud by organisers during the rally. Opposition leaders demanded new parliamentary elections, the release of political prisoners, the dismissal of the head of the Central Election Committee, as well as the registration of Grigory Yavlinsky as a presidential candidate. Yavlinksy, the founder of the Yabloko opposition party, was recently refused registration in the race by the Central Election Committee.
Despite the freezing temperatures turnout was higher than expected. Organisers estimated 120,000 attended, but police put that number at 36,000. The march and rally from Kaluzhskaya to Bolotnaya Square today was the largest protest to date, organisers vowed to hold another demonstration on 26 February if the Kremlin fails to meet their demands.
Today’s protest brought together the diverse elements of the ant-government movement, four big columns were formed by protesters representing the leftists, liberals, nationalists and civil activists. Smaller columns were formed to represent smaller groups, including religious and sexual minority groups. Protesters seeking peaceful change held white balloons to signify unity. Bright and creative posters were held up during the protest, with messages like “Russia without Putin,” “Putin you’re fired,” “Put in out” and “We’re ruled by vegetables.”
Putin’s supporters have dismissed the historically large rallies, claiming that participants are “financed by the West to destabilise the situation in Russia.” Vladimir Markin, member of Putin’s United People’s Front and spokesperson for the Russian Investigative Committee dismissed video evidence of fraud during the 4 December election, claiming that it was falsified, financed, and spread by the United States.
Anti-Putin rallies spread outside of the capital city, with similar rallies held across Russia and even in cities in 17 other countries, including London, Madrid, Sydney, and New York. Smaller anti-Putin rallies were held by individuals who felt that they could not march under the same banner as communists and nationalists.
A parallel rally in support of Putin was held at Poklonnaya Hill in Moscow, it attempted to link the loose stop-Putin coalition to the anti-government Orange Revolution that took place in Ukraine seven years ago, attendees were warned of an “orange threat from USA.” There have been allegations that participation in the rally was not voluntary, claims that many participants were employees of government-funded institutions, such as post offices and city councils, and that they were told that they would lose their jobs if they did not take part. Police estimated 138,000 participants, eyewitnesses put the figure much lower.
Putin speaking at a press conference in the Ural Mountains region said that the number of Muscovites who turned out in support was a reflection of his popularity not just the product of “administrative resources“. Although he did acknowledge that such resources may have been used to mobilise his supporters.
Meanwhile bloggers, rights activists, opposition members and journalists are gearing up to monitor the upcoming presidential elections as fears of vote-rigging rise.
1 Feb 2012 | Asia and Pacific, Index Index, minipost
Several Tibetan-language blogs hosted in China are reported to have gone offline today, amid a period of severe unrest. AmdoTibet’s blog section has been temporarily shut down, a message on the site reads, “due to some of the blog users not publishing in accordance with the goal of this site.” Tense events of recent weeks have included a stream of self-immolations in Tibet protesting against Chinese rule, and more recently, deadly clashes between officials and demonstrators.
30 Jan 2012 | Russia
The Russian Central Election Committee has refused to register Grigory Yavlinsky — founder of the Yabloko opposition party — as a presidential candidate. Yabloko did not reach the seven per cent minimum in the State Duma elections, but according to electoral law, the party should still have been able to register Yavlinksy as a presidential candidate with two million signatures in support. The committee rejected 25 per cent of the signatures he collected, deeming them to be defective.
Yavlinsky said that according to the committee’s documentation, less than three per cent of signatures were fraudulent, while the other 23 per cent contained “other infringements of paper execution.” The law says the number of defective signatures must not exceed five per cent.
The party denies the allegations, and continue to insist that the majority of signatures were authentic. Many well-respected artists and public figures signed in support of Yavlinsky, including former Soviet Union president Mikhail Gorbachev.
“The committee’s decision is politically motivated,” Yavlinsky told journalists, expressing concern that authorities are compromising voters’ right to choose a candidate. “Clearly this is not a decision celebrating the rule of law and allowing citizens to influence the election process,” he concluded.
A number of Russian opposition politicians said that refusal to register Yavlinsky could delegitimise the upcoming elections. The organisers of the 4 February “rally for fair elections” condemned the Committee’s decision.
Russian Prime Minister and presidential candidate Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Interfax news agency it is “absurd to protest against the Central Election Committee’s decision.”
Yabloko’s watchdogs are preparing to monitor the presidential elections on 4 March. In December’s Duma elections they reported mass fraud and election law violations, but only a few succeeded in fighting those violations in court. Most judges simply denied allegations and refused to bring law violators to justice. Yabloko activists claim that Russian courts are not independent, leaving the violations unprosecuted.
Russia’s leading independent election monitors’ association, GOLOS, also questions the independence of Russian courts. Deputy director Grigory Melkonyants told Index that election results cannot be disputed in court, as judges refuse to take evidence of violations into consideration.
In the run up to the parliamentary elections, GOLOS was targeted by pro-government media for launching an interactive online map of election violations. The propaganda war against GOLOS is now restarting as they gear up for the presidential elections. After launching a new map of violations, the organisation received a document demanding that they vacate their Moscow offices on 16 January. Police visited a joint event held by GOLOS and Memorial for the first time, and activists from both organisations viewed their presence as an act of “psychological pressure.” A few days before the incident, the head of the Federal Security Service department, in the Komi republic of Russia labeled the organisations as “extremists” aiming to “wreck the upcoming elections.”
With millions angered by Yavlinsky’s removal from the race, and the inability of activists to bring election law violators to justice through biased courts, many believe that the mass protests on 4 February will garner more participants than the last two demonstrations against fraudulent parliamentary elections.
27 Jan 2012 | Egypt, Uncategorized
My name is Ihsaan Azab. I’m 20 years old, and I was born in America. I lived half my life there and the other half in Egypt. I grew up in free country and knew how it felt to express myself. I moved to Egypt 10 years ago, but I still didn’t realise the burdens of daily life for Egyptian people lived in until 25 January last year.
Participating in protests on 25 Jan last year was an indescribable feeling. I was out with millions of people chanting the same demands. We insisted on our demands and achieved our goal — bringing down Mubarak’s oppressive government.
A year has now passed, and on 25 January this year, the same people who protested last year were out to say that they still have demands and will continue with the revolution. Others were there to celebrate its first anniversary. I was there again because I believe we still have more goals to be achieved, and as I chanted with the crowd, “down with the Military Council!” I was proud, more than ever, of being Egyptian.
