Moscow - Tens of thousands of Russians
staged what a monitoring group called the country's biggest
political protest for eight years on Saturday, defying a
crackdown to demand free elections to Moscow's city legislature.
Police rounded up scores of people after the demonstration
in Moscow and at another rally in St Petersburg, and detained a
leading opposition figure before it began. But the response from
the authorities was milder than the previous week when more than
1,000 protesters were detained, sometimes violently.
The White Counter monitoring group said up to 60,000 people
had attended the Moscow rally, describing it as the biggest in
Russia for eight years. Police put turnout at 20,000.
A month of demonstrations over elections for the Moscow city
legislature have turned into the biggest sustained protest
movement in Russia since 2011-2013, when protesters took to the
streets against perceived electoral fraud.
Crowds at the rally in Moscow roared "down with the tsar!"
and waved Russian flags. They are demanding that
opposition-minded candidates be permitted to run in a city
election next month after they were not allowed onto the ballot.
People with national flags stand under their umbrellas during a protest in Moscow. Picture: Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP
"The authorities have become brazen. It's time to defend our
rights," said Natalya Plokhova, a recruiting consultant.
As the scenes unfolded in Moscow, President Vladimir Putin
was shown on state television in a leather jacket at a biker
show organised by the Night Wolves motorcycle club on the
peninsula of Crimea which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
Putin and the Kremlin have so far avoided commenting on the
unrest over the Moscow city elections.
OVD-Info, a monitoring body, said 146 people were arrested
at Saturday's demonstration in Moscow and 86 in St Petersburg. A
small number of other arrests took place in other cities,
including Rostov-on-Don and Bryansk.
Police block a street during a protest in Moscow Tens of thousands of people rallied in central Moscow for the third consecutive weekend to protest the exclusion of opposition and independent candidates from the Russian capital's city council ballot. Picture: AP
"RUSSIA WILL BE FREE"
The Moscow protest was held with official permission, unlike
last week's demonstration. Afterwards, hundreds of mostly young
people chanting "Putin is a thief" began gathering near the
presidential administration building, prompting masked riot
police to ring off the area and detain dozens.
Authorities had earlier warned protesters not to continue
protesting after the officially authorised event. Until that
point the rally had largely passed without major incident, apart
from isolated police detentions and a smoke grenade set off
nearby.
Ahead of the rally, police detained hunger-striking
opposition activist Lyubov Sobol. Masked men raided her office
and the police said they had information she and other activists
were plotting a "provocation" at Saturday's rally.
Police detain a protester in Moscow, Russia. Picture; AP
"I won't make it to the protest. But you know what to do
without me....Russia will be free!" Sobol wrote on Twitter.
Some pro-Kremlin politicians and officials have suggested
that the West has helped orchestrate the protests. Kremlin
critic Alexei Navalny and at least seven of his allies are in
jail for breaking protest law.
Investigators have opened criminal proceedings against about
a dozen people for what they say was mass civil unrest at
earlier protests, a crime that carries a heavy jail term. They
have also opened a money-laundering investigation into Navalny's
anti-corruption foundation.
Throngs of protesters, sheltering from rain under umbrellas,
chanted "freedom for political prisoners" and "Russia will be
free". Several Russian musicians with youth followings,
including rapper Face and electronic band Ic3peak, performed at
the rally despite city authorities saying that would be banned.
Anton (Shilo) Chernyak, the leader of Russian band Krovostok, attends a rally to demand authorities allow opposition candidates to run in a local election in Moscow. Picture: Tatyana Makeyeva/Reuters
The focus of protesters' anger is a prohibition on a slew of
opposition-minded candidates, some of whom are allies of
Navalny, from taking part in a September election for Moscow's
city legislature. That vote is seen as a dry run for a national
parliamentary election in 2021.
Authorities say the opposition candidates failed to collect
enough genuine signatures to register. The excluded candidates
say that is a lie and insist on taking part in a contest they
believe they could win.
Police walk to block protesters during a protest in Moscow. Picture: AP
The ruling United Russia party's popularity rating is at its
lowest since 2011 and President Vladimir Putin's own rating has
fallen due to discontent over falling living standards.
At well over 60%, it is still high compared to many other
world leaders however, and last year the 66-year-old former KGB
intelligence officer won a landslide re-election and a new
six-year term until 2024.