Russian police round up anti-Putin protesters

By Denis Pinchuk1 hour, 37 minutes ago

Russian riot police beat opposition activists on Sunday and detained nearly 200 people at protest rallies against President Vladimir Putin a week before the country's parliamentary election.

Riot police in St Petersburg, Russia's second city and Putin's home town, detained Boris Nemtsov and Nikita Belykh, leaders of the Union of Right Forces (SPS) party who are both running in the December 2 election. They were later released.

The protests came a day after police detained opposition leader and former world chess champion Garry Kasparov in Moscow -- a move the United States condemned on Sunday as part of "aggressive tactics" by authorities.

"We are troubled that Garry Kasparov and other leaders of the opposition have been arrested and detained," said White House National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

Kasparov, leader of the Other Russia group, was among 60 detained in the 3,000-strong Moscow march, activists said.

In St Petersburg, 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 the city centre.

"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.

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.

(Writing by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Charles Dick)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071125/...L1K9VbjLZn.3QA
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Not good for Russia, Putin is a dangerous man, and he is trying to gain more and more power for himself...I wouldn't be surprised if Russia ends up in another dictatorship soon, unless the people do something.

The so-called "anti-Putin protesters" are Western agents who are paid by Boris Berezovsky.

Putin is EXTREMELY popular in Russia.
Forum of Putin's supporters in Moscow

"The current stability, economic growth, peace, and rising, albeit moderately, living standards are the result of the continuous political struggle at home and on the world scene," Putin said, warning that the West would prefer to see "a weak, ill Russia with a disorganized and split society."

Putin also said some political forces inside the country were seeking support from foreign governments and funds, rather than their own people. Criticizing Western-leaning opposition groups, he said they were attempting to restore an "oligarchic regime based on corruption and lies," referring to the turbulent 1990s which brought fortunes to a handful of Kremlin-connected tycoons while impoverishing millions of ordinary Russians.

http://en.rian.ru/photolents/20071122/89045273_1.html


Berezovsky renews his calls for power change in Russia



26/ 08/ 2007


LONDON, August 26 (RIA Novosti) - Fugitive oligarch Boris Berezovsky renewed his calls for power change in Russia in an interview with a British paper published Sunday.

"Putin's regime is authoritarian. Under the current system, free elections are impossible. Only pressure on the Kremlin will make it possible to re-establish a constitutional form of government," The Sunday Times quoted Berezovsky as saying.

Russia has been seeking the extradition of Berezovsky, who lives in London as a political emigre, since 2002 on charges of money laundering, fraud, and plotting a coup in Russia. However, Moscow's repeated demands for the extradition of the fugitive oligarch have so far been refused.

In an online interview with The Guardian on April 13 Berezovsky announced plans to overthrow President Vladimir Putin by force. However, Britain's Crown Prosecution Service refused to open a criminal case against the exiled tycoon on Moscow's demand, saying he was rather calling for civil disobedience, and, therefore could not be stripped of his refugee status granted in 2001, which would mean his extradition to Russia.

In January 2006, Berezovsky told Russia's Ekho Moskvy radio station that he was "working" to stage a coup in the country.

This time, Berezovsky quoted John Locke, an English philosopher, as saying: "If a government violates the law, overthrowing it is not just a right, but an obligation of responsible members of society."

Berezovsky told The Sunday Times that the philosopher's words applied to the current situation in Russia.

"I am calling for deliberate pressure aimed at reinstating a form of government that would correspond to the letter and the spirit of the Russian Federation constitution," the paper quoted him as saying.

Relations between Russia and Britain have been strained following the death of Alexander Litvinenko, an FSB defector and outspoken Kremlin critic, from poisoning in London last November.

http://en.rian.ru/world/20070826/74691371.html



Paul Klebnikov tells the incredible story of Boris Berezovsky, a one-time Russian car dealer who assembled a huge--and illicit--fortune after the collapse of Communism. "This individual had risen out of nowhere to become the richest businessman in Russia and one of the most powerful individuals in the country," writes Klebnikov, a respected reporter for Forbes. "This is a story of corruption so profound that many readers might have trouble believing it." Yet Godfather of the Kremlin is a careful work of journalism in which Klebnikov documents the business dealings of a man who once bragged to the Financial Times that he and six other men controlled half of the Russian economy and rigged Boris Yeltsin's reelection in 1996.

http://www.amazon.ca/Godfather-Kreml.../dp/0151006210

Boris Berezovsky


READ MORE -

http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/...htm#BEREZOVSKY

Russia's Jewish Robber Barons

The Jewish oligarchs used cheating, bribery and murder, as they exploited the disintegration of the Soviet system to loot the treasures of the state and to amass plunder amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars.

http://globalfire.tv/nj/05en/politics/robberbarons.htm



Berezovsky fraud case goes to court

15/ 06/ 2007

MOSCOW, June 15 (RIA Novosti) - The case of fugitive tycoon Boris Berezovsky, accused of embezzling Aeroflot funds, has been sent to a Moscow court, a court spokesperson said Friday.

In the late 1990s, the tycoon was charged with setting up two front companies in Switzerland to divert millions of dollars from the Russian flagship carrier. However, the Aeroflot case was suspended after he fled to the United Kingdom and was granted political asylum there in 2003.

British authorities have so far turned down all requests from Moscow to extradite him.


http://en.rian.ru/russia/20070615/67286137.html

Ict1523, I thought you would say something about my info....

OSCE says Putin heading party list will not cause ballot rigging
30/ 11/ 2007

MOSCOW, November 30 (RIA Novosti) - An OSCE observer said on Friday that President Vladimir Putin's decision to head the pro-Kremlin United Russia party list will not lead to ballot rigging at the December 2 parliamentary elections.

Kimmo Kiljunen, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly's special representative for Central Asia, said the move is standard practice in several countries whose presidents back particular parties.

However, he said that Putin's decision will have a "huge impact" on the voting results.

Representatives of Russian political parties met with a group of international observers earlier on Friday in the State Duma, parliament's lower house.

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20071130/90337224.html

Ok...I notice most of your sources are russian...you expect us to think they're not going to be biased? Especially with Putin having so much control over everything? I mean, you can't say (in the other thread) that the Guardian was always anti-Russian, but then back up your beliefs with Russian sites...because they'll be biased too.

Sorry, but I don't believe the observer. Putin might be popular enough to have his party win the election, however, I have no doubt that if needed, Putin would try to turn the election to favor his party.

Ict1523, MOST of the sites that I linked to are NOT Russian sites.
And by the way, we're discussing the FACTS and not the sources of information.
However, just to point it out to YOU since you didn't notice:


Is Amazon.com a Russian site? No.



http://www.amazon.ca/Godfather-Kreml.../dp/0151006210

How about the San José State Universty site? www.sjsu.edu

Boris Berezovsky
READ MORE -

http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/...htm#BEREZOVSKY


Is globalfire.tv a Russian site?

Russia's Jewish Robber Barons

The Jewish oligarchs used cheating, bribery and murder, as they exploited the disintegration of the Soviet system to loot the treasures of the state and to amass plunder amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars.

http://globalfire.tv/nj/05en/politics/robberbarons.htm

And just which commie country pays you? Or do you just work against freedom for free? Please provide a link, any support for your stand on totalitarian government being better that choice. and no I don't want to read
Karl Marks...............

__________________
Yea can't keep the words of your great leader.

Prophet Muhammad - “Do you love your creator? Love your fellow-beings first.”

Mlurp, is it a part of your culture (whatever country you are from...) to insult a person before asking a question?
I wasn't even talking to you by the way, Mlurp



Berezovsky renews his calls for power change in Russia



26/ 08/ 2007

LONDON, August 26 (RIA Novosti) - Fugitive oligarch Boris Berezovsky renewed his calls for power change in Russia in an interview with a British paper published Sunday.

"Putin's regime is authoritarian. Under the current system, free elections are impossible. Only pressure on the Kremlin will make it possible to re-establish a constitutional form of government," The Sunday Times quoted Berezovsky as saying.

http://en.rian.ru/world/20070826/74691371.html



"Looting Of Russia" - 2 is what on his mind.




Paul Klebnikov tells the incredible story of Boris Berezovsky, a one-time Russian car dealer who assembled a huge--and illicit--fortune after the collapse of Communism. "This individual had risen out of nowhere to become the richest businessman in Russia and one of the most powerful individuals in the country," writes Klebnikov, a respected reporter for Forbes. "This is a story of corruption so profound that many readers might have trouble believing it." Yet Godfather of the Kremlin is a careful work of journalism in which Klebnikov documents the business dealings of a man who once bragged to the Financial Times that he and six other men controlled half of the Russian economy and rigged Boris Yeltsin's reelection in 1996.

http://www.amazon.ca/Godfather-Kreml.../dp/0151006210

I'd like you to find me some info...should be interesting as I don't know too much about him.

Still don't know how you defend him rounding up protesters...and I dont believe you when you say all of the anti-Putin protesters are western agents...must be quite a lot we planted then huh?

Ok...you are right, there is one Russian site, but linked from like three or four times.

And I don't see what's wrong with discussing sites...you do it all the time...like the Guardian and the BBC....so why can't I do the same?