Police thwart anti-Kremlin rally
Page last updated at 14:14 GMT
Sunday, 14 December 2008
BBC News

Police have prevented a march by anti-government demonstrators in Moscow, detaining about two dozen of them.

Police trucks ringed the square where protesters were to gather, and hundreds of officers with truncheons stood by.

The protest was the latest organised by former chess champion Garry Kasparov. On Saturday he launched a new anti-Kremlin movement called Solidarity.

It is named after the Polish trade union that first breached the communist dominance in the former Soviet bloc.

The city authorities had warned that Sunday’s demonstration, which had not been given permission, would be “firmly stopped by law enforcement officers within the framework of the law”.

‘Impossible to reform’

Mr Kasparov said on Saturday that Solidarity’s goal was “dismantling the Putin regime”.

“It is impossible to reform this regime,” he told more than 100 delegates at the founding congress in the Khimki area of Moscow.

Other leaders include a former deputy prime minister, Boris Nemtsov.

A pro-Kremlin youth movement, Young Russia, set off smoke bombs outside the conference hall. Some wore monkey masks and taunted delegates by tossing bananas at them.

Source: BBC News

Posted by Picasa
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
Tags: , ,