From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng  (Original Message)    Sent: 12/20/2006 3:01 AM
13.12.2006 20:17 MSK
Office of the United Civil Front searched
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RTVI
RUSSIA, Moscow. On 12 December a search was conducted by members of the FSB and the Interior Ministry in the office of the United Civil Front in Moscow. At about 14:00 hours around 15 policemen and people wearing civilian clothes entered the premises of the United Civil Front. Several of those who entered were armed. They did not show their identification and conducted themselves in a rude manner, shouting abuse and threatening to break down the door.

Members of the internet site “Kasparov.Ru” told PRIMA-News’s correspondent that only after persistent demands from members of the United Civil Front did the police show a warrant to search the premises. The warrant indicated that the search was being conducted on the grounds of a “suspicion of extremist activity”. Members of the United Civil Front recognised several of those who had entered as being members of the FSB.

During the search a number of copies of the United Civil Front’s newspaper, “The March of the Dissenters”, were taken away and office members had copies of their passports taken. Those who had arrived demanded that the office staff cease work and turn off their computers, having threatened to remove the computer system. However, representatives of the United Civil Front categorically refused to do this. A search of books, documents and newspapers located in the office was carried out.

At around 16:00 hours the operatives learned that Ludmila Alekseeva had called upon participants at a meeting taking place in Moscow of the All Russian Civil Congress, to go to the office of the United Civil Front and show their support. Several dozen members of the All Russian Civil Congress answered this call.

The All Russian Civil Congress was one of the organizers of “The March of the Dissenters”, which was due to take place along Tverskaya street in Moscow on 16 December. The city authorities had previously banned it from taking place.

The United Civil Front said that its leader, Gary Kasparov, had taken part in an improvised press conference and had announced that the search was an attempt to frighten the organizers of the “March of the Dissenters”.

Kasparov connected the search with the recent announcement by Mayor Yuri Luzhkov’s press secretary, Sergei Soi,, in which he had threatened the organizers of the 16 December protest with a criminal investigation.

However, as Kasparov had said, despite the authorities attempts to frighten the organizers and participants in the March, he and other leaders of “Other Russia” intended to take part in the protest.

Kasparov mentioned that the Moscow authorities had made a decision on 12 December that a meeting could be held, but mentioned that the Moscow authorities did not have the legal right to change the format of the action from a demonstration to a meeting.

The United Civil Front’s website announced through a link to a source in the Moscow Government’s Security Department that the Russian Minister of the Interior, Rashid Hurgaliev, had written a letter to the Mayor of Moscow, Yuri Luzhkov, with a recommendation to ban the “March of the Dissenters”. In the letter Nurgaliev asked Luzhkov to ban the protest either in the form of a meeting or in the form of a demonstration.

Information agency PRIMA-News [2006-12-11-Rus-21]
http://www.prima-news.ru/eng/news/news/2006/12/13/37279.html