Moscow protest against Putin attracts at least 25,000; other demonstrations throughout Russia

[maddezmom]

By Associated Press, Updated: Saturday, December 10, 8:38 AM

MOSCOW — Tens of thousands of Muscovites thronged to a square across the river from the Kremlin on Saturday to protest alleged electoral fraud and urge an end to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s rule, demands repeated at other rallies across this vast country in the largest public show of discontent in post-Soviet Russia.

The demonstrations come three months before Putin, who was president in 2000-2008 and effectively remained the country’s leader while prime minister, is to seek a third presidential term. The massive outpouring of public anger challenges his image, supported by state-controlled TV channels, as a man backed by the majority of Russians.

That image was undercut by last Sunday’s parliamentary elections, during which his United Party narrowly retained a majority of seats, but lost the unassailable two-thirds majority it had held in the previous parliament. Even that reduced performance was unearned, inflated by massive vote fraud, the opposition says, citing reports by local and international monitors of widespread violations. The reports of vote-rigging and the party’s loss of seats acted as a catalyst for long-simmering discontent of many Russians.

“The falsifications that authorities are doing today have turned the country into a big theater, with clowns like in a circus,” said Alexander Trofimov, one of the demonstrators at Bolotnaya Square, on an island in the Moscow River adjacent to the Kremlin.


more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/moscow-protest-against-putin-attracts-at-least-25000-other-demonstrations-throughout-russia/2011/12/10/gIQA3RQTkO_story.html

[doc03]

1. Did they get pepper sprayed and beat with clubs? n/t

[FarCenter]

2. Apparently not

Tens of thousands of Russians join nationwide vote protest

The security presence was heavy throughout central Moscow and a handful of activists also gathered on Revolution Square near the Kremlin where they had originally planned to meet. But there were no reports of violence and by nightfall crowds were dispersing in Moscow.

Vladimir Lukin, Russia’s human rights ombudsman, praised police for helping ensure the Moscow protest remained peaceful.
...
About 7,000 people gathered for a vote protest rally in St. Petersburg’s central Pionerskaya Square on Saturday, local police said. About 10 people were being held by police there, a police spokesman said.
...
“I don’t want my vote that went to the Communist Party to go to United Russia. These elections were a lie and a falsification,” Ivan Sapsalyev, a student and director of an IT company, said.

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20111210/169588733.html

[treestar]

4. Were they camping somewhere overnight? n/t

[pampango]

3. NYT: Thousands Gather in Russia to Protest Legislative Elections

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/world/europe/thousands-protest-in-moscow-russia-in-defiance-of-putin.html


Protesters gathered in Bolotnaya Square in central Moscow on Saturday

Tens of thousands of Russians gathered peacefully in central Moscow on Saturday to shout “Putin is a Thief” and “Russia Without Putin,” forcing the Kremlin to confront a level of public discontent that has not been seen here since Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin first became president 12 years ago.

The crowd overflowed Bolotnaya Square, forcing stragglers to climb trees and watch from the riverbank opposite. It included liberals, nationalists and communists, but could best be described as the urban middle class, a group that has grown richer and larger during the Putin era. An hour into the event, police estimated the crowd at 25,000, which would make it the largest antigovernment action since the fall of the Soviet Union.

But the estimates of protest organizers ranged from 40,000 to 80,000.

The authorities had been trying to discourage attendance, saying that widespread protests could culminate in a disaster on the scale of the Soviet collapse, which occurred 20 years ago this month. Officials have portrayed the demonstrators as traitors backed by the United States and as revolutionaries dedicated to a violent, Libya-style overthrow of Mr. Putin.

“In the ’80s and ’90s, the liberals, having started a war with the Communist Party, did not notice that they were destroying the country,” Dmitry O. Rogozin, Russia’s ambassador to NATO and a close ally of Mr. Putin, wrote on Twitter on Friday. “Don’t let them repeat this crime.”

[Starry Messenger]

5. Russian election: Biggest protests since fall of USSR

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16122524

As many as 50,000 people gathered on an island near the Kremlin to condemn alleged ballot-rigging in parliamentary elections and demand a re-run.

Other, smaller rallies took place in St Petersburg and other cities.

Communists, nationalists and Western-leaning liberals turned out together despite divisions between them.

The protesters allege there was widespread fraud in Sunday's polls though the ruling United Russia party did see its share of the vote fall sharply.

[David__77]

6. So the liberals think that the communists really won?

It certainly wasn't the liberals. Yabloko and Union of Right Forces are truly rejected by the vast majority of the Russian voters. There is United Russia and their is the communists as major political forces and that is all.