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According to organizers, some 4,000 people turned out for Sunday’s pro-democracy “March of Objectors” protest on St. Petersburg’s central Pioneer Square to voice their dissent for authoritarian roll-backs under Putin. It was part of a larger protest that also took place in Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod.
The protest drew anti-Putin political organisations of all stripes and leanings, among them members of St. Petersburg’s Yabloko party; The Citizens Front Association; The Russian People’s Democractic Union; the Nationalist-Bolshevik organisation; the Red Youth Avant-Guard; The Russian Workers’ Party, as well as Stop the Draft, Memorial, We Defend Vasilievsky Island, and the Investors Movement.
The first attempt to carry out the March of Objectors in St. Petersburg occurred on March 3rd. Some 7,000 people turned out to express their dissatisfaction with the present presential aministration for a variety of reasons from authoritarian crackdwons on civil society, to ongoing involuntary conscription to changes in real estate law . The demonstration succeeded in breaking through a barricade of riot police and pouring out onto Nevsky Prospect, St. Petersburg’s main thoroughfare.
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| Demonstrators were nearly even matched to the person by riot police. |
| Rashid Alimov/Bellona |
Sunday’s March in St. Petersburg, like the last one, was not sanctioned by authorities, who had only approved a small meeting against Putin's policies over his tenure in office on the city’s Pushkin Square. Law enforcement authorities prepared for yesterday’s demonstration in force: The night before the demostration, riot police from other cities around Russia were brought in as reinforcements. According to eyewitnesses, the protestors who gathered on Pushkin Square were almost out-numbered by police in riot gear. Additionally, mobile telephone towers in the area of the protest were shut down.
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| A scuffle breaks out near the subway. |
| Rashid Alimov/Bellona |
The scene as described by Yabloko, saw hundreds of activists arrested and roughed up by police during the march itself. But a true melee broke our when the march was over and protestors made their way to the subway. A scuffle began near the subway entrance. As observed by Bellona Web, riot police boxed the crowd in, shutting off the exit door and entering the station with shield, night-sticks and setting off tear gas.
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| Bellona archive photo of Olga Tsipilova. |
| Bellona Archive |
Tsipilova herself is a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, holds a doctorate in Sociology and is active in the “green” wing of the Yabloko party. She has written numerous studies on life in Russia’s closed nuclear cities, which have not served to gain her popularity among Russian officialdom. She was released from police custody and is now in the hospital with a concussion and a broken nose.
Russia's Ministry of Internal Affairs defended the actions of the police.
"The special police forces behaved correctly, professionally and in accordance with the law - and most importantly they guaranteed social order in the city," Mikhail Sukhodolsky, deputy head of Russia's Interior Ministry, told reporters.
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| Riot police detained demonstrators indiscriminately. |
| Rashid Alimov/Bellona |
Human rights activists expressed their outrage at their rough treatment at the hands of authorities on what were peaceful protests in three of Russia’s most metropolitan enclaves. The Moscow Helsinki Group with the For Human Rights movement plan a demonstration of solidarity with those who took part on the March of Objectors on April 26.
“This is a violation of the constitution, which protects the rights of Russian citizens to assemble and demonstrate. By these arrests, the authorities are trying to reduce dissent, but they are just creating more,” said Alexeyeva in an interview with the independent Ekho Moskvy radio.
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| The number of riot police were no less than the number of protestors. |
| Rashid Alimov/Bellona |
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| A protestor’s sign reads: “This is our city!” |
| Rashid Alimov/Bellona |
