Kremlin cracks down on protest: Mass arrests as opposition leader jailed
ANTI-CORRUPTION RALLIES SPRING UP ACROSS RUSSIA
MOSCOW • Hundreds of Russian anti-corruption protesters were arrested Monday in the biggest crackdown since President Vladimir Putin came to power.
Russian media reported that more than 1,600 people were arrested during rallies that swept the country and saw protesters chanting “Russia without Putin” and “Russia will be free.”
Alexei Navalny, the charismatic opposition leader who called for the protests, was detained as he left his Moscow home for the rally. He was later sentenced to 15 days in jail for his role in organizing an illegal protest.
After Navalny’s arrest, his wife, Yulia Navalnaya, tweeted, “Alexei told me to pass on to us that the plan hasn’t changed.”
The police crackdown was concentrated in Moscow and Saint Petersburg but detentions also took place at protests across Russia’s 11 time zones.
The number of arrests was on course to surpass those in March during a first outbreak of nationwide anti- corruption protests called by Navalny.
The Kremlin is struggling to respond to a wave of anger that has been channelled by Navalny as he seeks to bolster his attempt to run for president in 2018 elections. Many of the protesters are young people who have grown up during Putin’s 17 years of ruling Russia.
“Corruption is everywhere,” said student Artyom Mikhalin, 21, who was attending the protest in central Moscow with a large Russian flag. “It’s the hypocrisy of the authorities who say one thing and do another.”
“I came here wrapped in a Russian flag and I’m afraid the police will arrest me,” said Dmitry Umydov, 30. “What kind of country do we live in when I can’t put a Russian flag on my shoulder?”
“I’m angry, my family is angry, but they’re not going to come to this because they’re scared,” said Alexander Fomenko, a 17- year- old student wearing jean shorts, closely cropped hair and a tattoo with a dragon on his left leg. “I don’t have such fear. I will be here on this street until they throw me in jail. And there’s a lot of people who think like me; my friends think like me.”
Reports of detentions came from more than 100 cities. Police held 11 people in the far eastern city of Vladivostok, 10 people in the Siberian city of Norilsk, while 36 people were arrested in the western exclave of Kaliningrad, according to OVD-Info, a Russian NGO that tracks political arrests. The demonstrations coincided with a public holiday, Russia Day, on which Putin handed out awards in the Kremlin.
In Moscow, protests took place during a city festival featuring men and women dressed in costumes from the late Middle Ages staging mock sword fights and manning reconstructed Viking longboats. The reenactments paused as riot police split up protesters and arrested people in the crowd. Protestors chanted slogans including “Putin is a thief!”, “Down with the czar!”, and “Stop lying and stealing.”
Many demonstrators carried blow- up rubber ducks, which have become the symbol of corruption associated with Dmitry Medvedev after a video report by Navalny alleged the prime minister’s estate includes a duck house in the middle of a pond. Navalny claims Medvedev has amassed vineyards, yachts and lavish mansions worth more than US$1 billion.
“How much can you sit around at home and feel angry?” said businesswoman Oksana, 49, who attended the protest with her 15- year- old daughter. “You have to start with something. The young people who came here today will be the drivers of this.”
The scale of the protests is likely to cause consternation in the Kremlin, largely unchallenged by Russia’s fractured and divided opposition in recent years.
Russian st a t e - o wned television channels made no mention of the protests. Navalny supporters running an online live feed of the protests said the electricity was cut to their building.
The Kremlin was clearly caught off guard by the turnout in March, especially among young people.
This turbulence is not likely to prevent Putin, whose approval rating has not been below 80 per cent in three years, from winning re-election in March, Denis Volkov with Russia’s independent pollster, the Levada Centre, said. But it does point to a fundamental weakness of the system Putin has created.