6.6.2005 13:05 MSK
"Civil resistance" takes to the streets
RUSSIA, Saint Petersburg. "From now on the scene of our action will be the street," says the address by Coalition of Democratic Opposition Forces, the Civil Resistance of St. Petersburg. "We don’t want violence. We don’t want to break the law. The authorities are acting with arbitrariness refusing us permission to hold protests. It is not us who are breaking the law but the authorities. They infringe our constitutional rights. And our actions will convince the society," the document states.

The address published by the Coalition on 2 June notes that "the authorities refuse permission to hold protests, pickets and marches citing far-fetched and often laughable excuses. Organisers are detained by militia without charge. There is a real hunt by militia against distributors of independent press. Courts bury complaints of opposition members against the authorities. All this is the evidence that the authorities don’t wish to conduct a dialogue with democratic opposition preferring to use the language of threats, intimidation and police spying. In the Northern Capital’s political life we observe Byzantine scheming, Asian despotism and Soviet-style bureaucratic arbitrariness at the same time… It all gives an impression that the authorities are deliberately pushing the opposition beyond the so-called legal framework so as to discredit it in the eyes of the public," says the address.

St. Petersburg Civil Resistance that includes right-wing parties as well as communists and national Bolsheviks appeals to St. Petersburg public and diplomats accredited in the city: "If you hear that the opposition has gone beyond the legal framework don’t believe it. The authorities have long stepped outside this framework so as to gag all who disagree."

Translated by Olga Sharp
PRIMA-News Agency [2005-06-03-Rus-18]
http://www.prima-news.ru/eng/news/news/2005/6/6/32489.html