Russian police round up anti-Putin protesters

Russian riot police beat opposition activists on Sunday and detained nearly 200 people at protest rallies against President Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg, Russia’s second city.Riot police also detained Boris Nemtsov and Nikita Belykh, leaders of the Union of Right Forces (SPS) party who are both running in a December 2 parliamentary election. They were later released.

This correspondent saw riot police beating activists with batons and their fists before forcing them into police buses.

Dozens more were detained outside the Winter Palace, the residence of the Tsars, and at another rally in central St Petersburg, Putin’s home town.

“They have forbidden us from discussing Putin,” Nemtsov told the crowd. “But we have come here today to ask Mr Putin and the authorities why is there so much corruption in the country?”

He was promptly detained by five riot policemen as the crowd chanted “Russia without Putin”.

Nemtsov told Reuters his detention was a breach of Russian law which forbids police from detaining candidates.

“Putin has total disregard for the country’s constitution and laws,” Nemtsov said. “He is afraid the people will find out the truth and so he hides behind the riot police.” 

About 500 activists made it to the marches but were vastly outnumbered by riot police. Most of those detained were later released, organizers said.

The city authorities had not given permission for the march and streets in the city centre were blocked by riot police and snow-clearing trucks.

The “march of the discontented” brings together Putin’s opponents into one movement which includes Other Russia, free-market parties such as SPS and Yabloko as well as anarchists and radical socialists.

Police on Saturday detained Other Russia leader and former world chess champion Garry Kasparov when they broke up a march of about 3,000 in Moscow. Activists said 60 people were detained at that march.

OPPONENTS OF PUTIN

Putin’s opponents accuse the Kremlin chief of cracking down on the freedoms won after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union and of creating what they say is an unstable political system dependent on Putin alone.

“They have started a war with the people,” Tamara, 72, who took part in the march.

“Putin is very bad — look at the poverty in the country. Pensioners are forced to rummage in the dustbins.”

Kremlin officials say the opposition marches are aimed at attracting attention in the West and that the activists are a mixed bag of marginal politicians with little public support.

Putin, ranked by opinion polls as the most popular politician in Russia, is credited by supporters for cementing political stability and presiding over the longest economic boom for a generation.

The former KGB spy has vowed to step down as president next year after his second consecutive four-year term in office.

But he has said he will use the pro-Kremlin United Russia party to preserve influence after he steps down. He is running as the party’s top candidate in the December election.

“We are ruled by the United Russia gang. They have taken away the elections,” said Lyubov Chilipenko at the march.