Moscow, demonstrators take to streets against 'eternal Putin'
Demonstrations also in St. Petersburg and Khabarovsk. Outcry against constitutional changes, which allow Putin to govern the country beyond 2024: he has been in power since 2000. The coronavirus, a reason for denying permits to rallies.
Moscow (AsiaNews) - "No to eternal Putin": this is the slogan that hundreds of protesters chanted going down the streets between Tverskaja and Petrovka streets in the center of the capital on 15 July.
Police arrested 140 people. The procession was organized by a committee formed against the constitutional changes recently approved with the referendum on 1 July. The changes will allow Putin to dominate the country well beyond 2024 (he has been in power since 2000). Most of those arrested were released the following morning, with an obligation to go to the police headquarters to sign the report. Two activists, Anna Ljko and Aleksandr Dmitriev, were held in solitary confinement.
The unauthorized demonstration started at 7 p.m. from Puškinskaja square, gathering several hundred people. The organizers had submitted a regular application for authorization, but the authorities of the Moscow Municipality did not even respond. The demonstrators therefore decided to form a spontaneous meeting in small groups, knowing full well that they were going to meet police reactions, which were not long in coming.
A part of the demonstrators walked on the ring of the central Boulevard, chanting the slogan: "Moscow, come out!", Inviting passersby to join the procession, which at a certain point stopped by organizing a sit-in, lying down on the ground and blocking traffic.
THe arrested incuded some well-known journalists, such as ONK's Marina Litvinova, the executive director of Otkrytaja Rossija Andrej Pivovarov, the MGU university professor Sergei Fedorov, the Moscow municipal deputy Julija Galjamina with her daughter, and other well-known faces. Galjamina said that "you always have to do what you think is right, people follow you if they want".
A member of the procession, Denis, said that "I feel like I am banging my head against a brick wall". Pussy Riot singer Maria Aljokhina instead observed that "ours is not a totalitarian regime, but a mafia regime, mafia state".
A similar demonstration took place in the same hours in the center of St. Petersburg, on Malaja Sadovaja street, where a group of about 1000 people gathered and a collection of signatures against constitutional changes took place, forming a queue of about a kilometer . Among the slogans of the Petersburgers, "Freedom for political prisoners!" and in favor of Sergei Furgal, the governor of Khabarovsk arrested a few days ago.
Khabarovsk residents, meanwhile, are on the sixth day of demonstrations to protest the arrest of the governor; The police also used threats from coronavirus, which was reported to have grown dramatically in the region right after Furgal's arrest, as a topic of repression, banning all forms of public gatherings.
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07/01/2021 11:33
23/12/2020 09:06
