1,000 arrested in Russia corruption protests
Tens of thousands hit streets in rallies on national holiday organized by opposition head
MOSCOW— Tens of thousands of protesters held anti-corruption rallies across Russia on Monday in a new show of defiance by an opposition that the Kremlin had once dismissed as ineffectual and marginalized.
More than a thousand were arrested — including opposition leader and protest organizer Alexei Navalny, who was seized outside his Moscow residence while heading to the rally in the city centre and sentenced to 30 days in jail several hours later.
The Moscow protest was the most prominent in a string of more than 100 rallies in cities and towns stretching through all 11 of Russia’s time zones — from the Pacific to the European enclave of Kaliningrad — with many denouncing Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Thousands of angry demonstrators thronged to Tverskaya St., a main avenue in the capital, chanting “Down with the czar” and singing the Russian national anthem.
The protests coincided with Russia Day, a national holiday that this year brought out historical re-enactors, some of them dressed in medieval costumes. At one point, the Moscow demonstration featured an unlikely scene of about 5,000 protesters rallying next to an enclosure with geese, a medieval catapult and bearded men in homemade tunics and carrying wooden shields.
The re-enactors watched the rally before riot police broke up the crowd and randomly seized the protesters.
Over 800 people were arrested in Moscow, while in St. Petersburg, about 500 were forced into police buses at an unsanctioned rally that drew up to 10,000 people. Navalny was taken to court Monday evening and sentenced to 30 days in jail shortly after midnight for repeated violations of the law on public gatherings.
“The geography of rallies was amazing and so many people came out,” Navalny told reporters shortly before he was sentenced, pointing to protest rallies held in towns which have not seen any public show of discontent for decades.
The demonstrators appeared to skew predominantly younger — those who were born or grew up during Putin’s 17 years in power. Similar crowds turned out on March 26, rattling officials who had perceived the younger generation as largely apolitical.
Three 16-year-old girls brought sheets of paper to the Moscow protest and sat on the pavement to write the articles of the Russian Constitution on them; a nearby group of teenagers climbed atop of a tent with posters saying, “Corruption kills the future.” Other protesters scaled a scaffold and hung a sign saying, “Only revolution will defeat corruption.”
School and university staff who reportedly reprimanded their students for attending the March protests warned them against going to Monday’s rally.
Ivan Sukhoruchenkov, 19, attended anyway with four university classmates to protest what he called “stagnation of the political system.”
“Change is always good,” Sukhoruchenkov said, adding that he and his friends were concerned about corruption — Navalny’s rallying cry — that “manifests itself in all areas: from traffic police to university professors.”
Navalny had called the anti-corruption demonstrations and they drew crowds of several dozen to the10,000 in St. Petersburg. Some of the rallies were sanctioned by authorities and peaceful, but police cracked down brutally on others.
Although it was not immediately clear if Monday’s protests were larger than those in March, they underlined the deep dismay with the government. Putin is expected to seek another term in 2018 and Navalny has already announced his intention to run.
Moscow officials had agreed to allow Navalny’s rally, but late Sunday, he said official interference had prevented contractors from erecting a stage at the agreed-upon venue and instead urged demonstrators to gather on Tverskaya St., which was closed to traffic for the Russia Day festivities.
With opposition sentiment strong or growing, authorities appear to be seeking a strategy to undermine the opposition without provoking more animosity.