MOSCOW (AP) — Tens of thousands of people marched across downtown Moscow on Saturday in the first major protest in three months against President Vladimir Putin — a sign of the opposition's strength despite the Kremlin's efforts to muzzle dissent.
Leftists, liberals and
nationalists mixed up with students, teachers, gay activists and others
on the capital’s tree-lined boulevards, chanting “Russia without Putin!”
and “We are the government!”
The protest remained peaceful as
about 7,000 police officers stood guard along the route of the march,
and a police helicopter hovered overhead.
The demonstration showed
that opposition sentiment has remained strong, despite the government’s
efforts to stem the protest movement that had fielded more than 100,000
people to the streets last winter in a series of massive protests
against Putin’s election to a third presidential term.
Putin has
taken a tougher course against the opposition since his inauguration in
May with a series of new repressive laws, arrests and interrogation of
activists. In August, a court handed two-year prison sentences to three
members of the punk band Pussy Riot for performing an anti-Putin song
inside Moscow’s main cathedral. Some activists on Saturday carried big
balloons with balaclava masks painted on — the band’s trademark
headwear.
The rally, which had received the required permit from
authorities, appeared to be as big as the last major protest in June,
which also attracted tens of thousands.
The organizers had spent
days in tense talks with the city government over the protest route on
Saturday as the authorities tried to move it farther away from the city
center. Such tense bargaining preceded each of the previous opposition
marches.
A protest on the eve of Putin’s inauguration had ended in
clashes with police, and the Kremlin responded by arresting some of its
participants and approving a new draconian law that raised fines
150-fold for taking part in unsanctioned protests. The authorities,
however, issued the permission for a subsequent opposition rally in June
that was peaceful.
Alexei Navalny, a charismatic anti-corruption
crusader and a popular blogger who was a key driving force behind the
opposition protests, urged the demonstrators to show resolve and keep
the pressure on the Kremlin with more street protests.
“We must
come to rallies to win freedom for ourselves and our children, to defend
our human dignity,” he said to cheers of support. “We will come here as
to our workplace. No one else will free us but ourselves.”
Hopes
for a quick change that many protesters had during the winter have
waned, but opposition supporters appeared ready to dig in for a long
fight.
“We have to defend our rights which we were deprived of,
the right to have elections. We’re deprived of honest elections and an
honest government,” said opposition activist Alexander Shcherbakov. “I’m
coming to show that and to demonstrate that the people are against. I’m
opposed to illegitimate government and illegitimate elections.”
A
day before the rally, parliament expelled an opposition lawmaker who
angered the Kremlin by joining the protest movement. The vote to oust
Gennady Gudkov over allegations of running a business in violation of
parliament rules — charges Gudkov called “a sham” — angered many,
possibly helping beef up the ranks of protesters.
The vote
deprived Gudkov, a KGB veteran like Putin, from his immunity from
prosecution and his supporters fear he could be arrested.
His son
Dmitry Gudkov, also a lawmaker, said he hopes the Kremlin wouldn’t dare
to put his father in prison after seeing the protesters’ strength. “They
will have to either think about serious reforms and end their
repressions, or they will come to a very bad end,” he said.
“It’s
necessary right now for all Russians to come out into the streets in
order to show the regime that changes are needed in our country, and
that without that our country can’t develop,” said teacher Valentina
Merkulova, who participated in Saturday’s protest. “The most important
thing is that, the more Russians come out, the less bloody the change of
regime, the change of power, a change of power is necessary.”
