MOSCOW: Russian security forces arrested yesterday nine opposition activists who were taking part in a march in the centre of Moscow, police said.
The nine were among those marking the day of the Russian flag which is being commemorated throughout the country yesterday, Moscow police spokesman Anatoly Lastovetsky told the Interfax news agency.
He said the march had broken the rules by exceeding the previously announced number of participants and raising two banners rather than one.
The march was organised by the bitterly anti-Kremlin Solidarity movement which brings together opposition figures including the liberal ex-minister Boris Nemstov and former world chess champion Garry Kasparov. Among those arrested were Roman Dobrokhotov, leader of the opposition youth movement We and prominent activist Ilya Yashin, Nemtsov told the Echo of Moscow radio station.
Around 50 opposition activists took part, Interfax said. Nemtsov said there were initially no problems with the march when the activists unfurled a massive Russian flag on the pavement of the Arbat Street in central Moscow.
“But apparently under instruction from headquarters, the riot police started treating our comrades roughly and they were taken into vans bloodied,” he said.
“This is completely outrageous. It’s surprising that our riot police it seems do not know what the Russian flag looks like.”
Russian security forces regularly break up demonstrations by the liberal opposition, which remains marginalized and has no representation in parliament.
Meanwhile, Ingushetia’s leader returned to the Russian region yesterday after medical treatment following an assassination attempt and promised to wage a “merciless” fight against terrorism.
President Yunus-Bek Yevkurov smiled as he limped off an aeroplane in the capital Magas, state TV showed. He had been recovering at a resort near Moscow from wounds sustained when a suicide bomber blew up his car in June, killing his driver.
“His health is good and all is well. He’s come back to fight terrorism,” his spokesman, Kaloi Akhilgov, said. Yevkurov returned one day after Chechen rebels claimed responsibility for the biggest attack in Ingushetia in years in which 25 people were killed on Monday.
Interfax quoted him as saying: “The situation in Ingushetia is very difficult, but not hopeless. The fight against terrorism will be merciless.”
Ingushetia, Russia’s poorest region, borders Chechnya where Moscow has fought two wars against separatists since the early 1990s. It has become a new focus of attacks by Islamist radicals threatening the stability of Russia’s strategically important North Caucasus.
Rights groups and Ingush opposition say lawlessness and poverty are equally as responsible for the surge in violence as the Islamist insurgency.
http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=World_News&subsection=United+Kingdom+%26+Europe&month=August2009&file=World_News2009082313656.xml