MOSCOW: Thousands of Russians demonstrated across the country on Sunday to protest at corruption, defying bans on rallies which were called by prominent Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny — who was arrested along with scores of others. Navalny called for the protests after publishing a detailed report this month accusing Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev of controlling a property empire through a shadowy network of non-profit organisations. The report has been viewed over 11 million times on YouTube but Medvedev has so far made no comments on the claims.
Navalny, who has announced his intention to run for president in next year’s election, has been rallying supporters in major Russian cities in recent weeks.
In Moscow, Navalny called on supporters to walk along the main Tverskaya street, and people congregated on the nearby squares lined with dozens of police vans and rows of riot officers as a police helicopter hovered overhead.
“We have all seen the movie, it gives specific examples of corruption and there has been no reaction,” said 26-year-old factory worker Nikolai Moisey.
“They steal and they lie but still people will be patient to the end. The protest is a first push for people to start acting.”
Police detained Navalny shortly after 2:00 pm (1100 GMT) as he was walking to the protest, putting him in a police minibus, and the surrounding crowd briefly tried to block it from driving off shouting “Shame!” and “Let him out!”
“Guys, I am all right, go on along Tverskaya,” Navalny
tweeted from the van.
Thousands people filled Pushkin square, with some shouting “Russia without Putin”, referring to President Vladimir Putin. Some climbed on lamp posts and monument to poet Alexander Pushkin, shouting “impeachment!”
Moscow police estimated protest turnout at seven or eight thousand people.
Police moved to detain protesters to clear the square, with some using truncheons and pepper spray apparently dispersed in the crowd, correspondents observed.
“Over 130 people have been detained in Moscow,” the group, tweeted OVD Info, which tracks arrests at public events and reported earlier in the day that its website was down due to a DDoS attack.
“The whole country is tired of corruption on such a scale,” 50-year-old Natalia Demidova said. “Medvedev should be fired once such exposes come to light.”
Despite the dramatic scenes in the city, state TV channels did not cover the protests, instead showing soap operas and films about nature.
Some cities have officially sanctioned Sunday’s protest.
In the Siberian city of Novosibirsk, about 2,000 gathered in the city centre carrying signs like “No to corruption,” according to local news website Sib.fm. — AFP
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