November 24:
A Moscow court has sentenced Garry Kasparov, the former chess champion who leads The Other Russia opposition coalition, to five days in jail for violating public order after he was arrested during a “Dissenters’ March” in Moscow. According to Grani.ru, police detained several dozen marchers along with Kasparov, including Eduard Limonov, founder of the banned National Bolshevik Party, Ilya Yashin, leader of the youth wing of "Yabloko," and Maria Gaidar, who heads the "Da" youth movement. Several thousand people took part in the protest. NEWSru.com reports that police in Nizhny Novgorod detained six activists who tried to hold a “Dissenters’ March” there.
The Associated Press reports that five armed men wearing masks and camouflage burst into a hotel in Nazran, Ingushetia overnight and dragged away three REN TV journalists and Oleg Orlov, a member of the Memorial human rights group. Orlov said he and the journalists were beaten and then abandoned in a field. The incident took place just hours before riot police dispersed about 150 people who tried to gather in Nazran to protest human rights violations in Ingushetia. The Moscow office of Human Rights Watch said it received reports that several protesters beaten by Nazran police were hospitalized with serious injuries.
November 25:
Riot police have dispersed an unauthorized opposition march in St. Petersburg, detaining around 200 people, including former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov, who will run in next March’s presidential election as the candidate for the Union of Right-Wing Forces (SPS). Agence France-Presse reports that police could be seen clubbing seven National Bolshevik Party activists before forcing them into a van. Most of the detainees, including Nemtsov, were released after several hours.
November 26:
President Bush has said in a statement posted on the White House’s website that he is “deeply concerned” about “the detention of numerous human rights activists and political leaders who participated in peaceful rallies” in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod and Nazran. “The freedoms of expression, assembly and press, as well as due process, are fundamental to any democratic society,” Bush said. “I am hopeful that the government of Russia will honor its international obligations in these areas, investigate allegations of abuses and free those who remain in detention.”
The International Herald Tribune reports that Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused the U.S. of trying to taint the legitimacy of the December 2nd Russian parliamentary election by pressing the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), which is the election-monitoring arm of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, to abandon plans to monitor the election. Putin claimed the ODIHR canceled its plans to monitor the vote because of State Department pressure. The ODIHR announced in mid-November that it was canceling its mission to Russia because restrictions imposed by the Russian government had made it impossible for it to carry out its work.
November 29:
President Putin has gone on television to ask Russians to vote for United Russia in the upcoming State Duma elections. According to a transcript posted on the Kremlin’s website, Putin said those who once “tried unsuccessfully” to run the country and want to “bring back the times of humiliation, dependence and disintegration” must not be allowed to return to power. “Everything that has been... achieved by us in a persistent struggle can be preserved only by our common active civic position,” he said. “That is precisely why that I decided to head the United Russia list [of candidates] and precisely why I am asking you to go to the polls on December 2nd and vote for United Russia.”
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