In Moscow, a victory for protesters' rights
By Kathy Lally
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, January 31, 2011
MOSCOW - Protesters gathered here at Triumphant Square on Monday night and quickly declared themselves victorious, despite their small numbers: They had won permission to demonstrate for the third time, hardly anyone was arrested and they were not as desperate as Egyptians.
Opposition leader Boris Nemtsov told about 500 demonstrators rallying in support of freedom of assembly on the square outside the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall that it took 30 years for Egyptians to lose patience with President Hosni Mubarak. Russians, he said, have had only 12 years of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
"Revolutions are not for Russia," said Nemtsov, who spent 15 days in jail after being arrested at a similar demonstration on New Year's Eve. "Our main aim is free elections. We want Putin to go away - peacefully."
The protest was led by 83-year-old Ludmilla Alexeyeva, head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, and attended by a smattering of young people along with numerous middle-aged and elderly people, some making their way painfully by cane. Police surrounded them - 2,000 had been deployed - and looked intimidating, many in bulletproof vests and helmets, standing shoulder to shoulder and two deep around much of the square. They had brought a fleet of buses, ready to fill with law-breakers.
(More here.)
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, January 31, 2011
MOSCOW - Protesters gathered here at Triumphant Square on Monday night and quickly declared themselves victorious, despite their small numbers: They had won permission to demonstrate for the third time, hardly anyone was arrested and they were not as desperate as Egyptians.
Opposition leader Boris Nemtsov told about 500 demonstrators rallying in support of freedom of assembly on the square outside the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall that it took 30 years for Egyptians to lose patience with President Hosni Mubarak. Russians, he said, have had only 12 years of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
"Revolutions are not for Russia," said Nemtsov, who spent 15 days in jail after being arrested at a similar demonstration on New Year's Eve. "Our main aim is free elections. We want Putin to go away - peacefully."
The protest was led by 83-year-old Ludmilla Alexeyeva, head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, and attended by a smattering of young people along with numerous middle-aged and elderly people, some making their way painfully by cane. Police surrounded them - 2,000 had been deployed - and looked intimidating, many in bulletproof vests and helmets, standing shoulder to shoulder and two deep around much of the square. They had brought a fleet of buses, ready to fill with law-breakers.
(More here.)
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