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Moscow sees rare anti-government rally being staged
VOICING OPPOSITION:
A spokeswoman claims that 80 activists were detained, while 320 were removed by police from trains and buses traveling to the city
AP, MOSCOW
Monday, Dec 18, 2006, Page 6
More than 2,000 people held a rare anti-government rally in Moscow, accusing the Kremlin of growing authoritarianism and protesting against electoral law changes.
Before Saturday's rally, the authorities pulled opposition activists off buses and trains, and hundreds were detained to prevent them from attending, organizers said.
The members of liberal and leftist groups who made it through rallied in a central Moscow square, demanding that President Vladimir Putin and his government stop what the demonstrators called democratic backsliding.
"In 15 months, political power will be changed," former prime minister and potential presidential candidate Mikhail Kasyanov, who now heads an opposition group and is a fierce Kremlin critic, said, referring to the March 2008 presidential vote.
"Next year, everyone should make a personal decision about what to do with our country -- whether we allow these people to continue their illegal undertakings ... or we finally make our main goal to build a democratic ... state," Kasyanov told demonstrators.
Garry Kasparov, a former chess grandmaster and another vocal Kremlin opponent, said the very fact that the opposition rally took place was a success.
"We are protesting and it means that authorities are not as monolithic and powerful," he said. "They are afraid that one day we will tell them `enough.'"
The demonstrators chanted "Freedom" and held banners reading "No to Police State" and "Russia Without Putin."
The demonstration had originally planned to march down a main Moscow avenue in what was dubbed the "March of Those Who Disagree," but city authorities banned the march, allowing only a rally instead.
Organizers had vowed to go ahead with the march despite the ban, but the activists ended up only holding a demonstration and the crowd began dispersing after 1pm, over an hour into the event.
The march did not take place because the police and defense troops had sealed off the square and street, said Natalya Morar, a spokeswoman for the organizers.
Morar said about 80 protesters, including Ivan Starikov, a senior member of the liberal Union of Right Forces, were detained in Moscow throughout the day. Some 320 other activists were detained or removed from trains and buses on their way to Moscow.
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