The New York Times is reporting that " Lines of riot police officers in body armor and helmets blocked the streets of central Moscow on Saturday, arresting more than 1,000 demonstrators - chasing some of them down alleys - to blunt a protest over the fairness of coming city elections."
“We love Russia! They love money!” protesters chanted, a reference to widespread anger over government corruption. Others sat in the streets, awaiting arrest and reading copies of the Constitution. The spark for Saturday’s protest was a decision by election authorities to bar several opposition candidates from running for Moscow’s City Council, asserting that they had falsified signatures on petitions to run — a charge the candidates denied."
"An independent monitoring group said 1,067 people were arrested near City Hall, the intended site of the rally, although many never made it there. As in past protests, the authorities began making arrests blocks away so a large crowd could not form."
"Aleksei A. Navalny, the opposition leader who had called the demonstration, was arrested on Wednesday and sentenced to 30 days in jail. Other prominent opposition politicians — including Ilya V. Yashin, Dmitry G. Gudkov and Ivan Y. Zhdanov — were also rounded up before the event and released only late in the evening."
"A post on the Facebook page of Mr. Yashin, a street activist and one of the politicians who was barred from running, said 10 masked police officers had removed him from his apartment in Moscow overnight before the Saturday demonstration." This has happened before.
Although Russia is no longer Communist, it doesn't have a very good reputation for fair elections. In 2015, Boris Nemtsov, the opposition leader to Putin was shot dead.
This brings us back to the movie the November Man with Pierce Brosnan which was a fictional movie based on real life events. The CIA used false flag attacks in Chechnya to help Putin get elected. Trump wasn't guilty of Russian collusion, Hillary Clinton was. She sold them weapons grade uranium for missiles through a Canadian shell company.
Last week the Independent reported that "Thousands of people took to the streets in Moscow over the weekend in what opposition politicians and local media are calling the ‘largest demonstration in recent years’ in Russia. Independent NGO White Counter says some 22,500 people rallied yesterday to protest against the exclusion of dozens of independent candidates from the city council elections. “I haven’t been to such a huge rally since 2012,” tweeted Alexei Navalny, the leader of the opposition, after he attended the protest."
Russian opposition leader ill after exposure to 'undefined chemical'
Update: The Guardian is reporting that "Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny has been hospitalised, with symptoms that one of his doctors said appeared to be “the result of harmful effects of undefined chemical substances”. Navalny was taken to hospital on Sunday morning from jail, where he was serving a 30-day sentence after being arrested last week for calling people to attend an anti-government protest."
Russians are a tough, proud people who have usually been poorly served by their leaders, they love Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin because they know those two actually had their best interests at heart. Their patriotism has often been used against them, unfortunately. Good luck to them all, they deserve better.
ReplyDeleteIndeed. In Belfast they referred to Russia as Big Brother. Before the Communist revolution, Christianity was quite prevalent in Russia. In fact, there appears to be a resurgence of Russian Christianity in the Ukraine which is ironically enough being opposed by Western backed militia. Whose side are we really on?
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Part of the problem is Putin is using the Church to attain his political ends. the Ukrainian Catholic church has now separated from the main church and will have its own leader.
ReplyDeleteThe Russian Orthodox church is above the law and ridiculing it can put you in jail. remember the young women from Pussie riot who went to jail to mocking the church. Putin likes the church because it helps him achieves his own ends. He saw that clearly with the Polish labour movement and Lech Walesa. The Catholic faith had endured in Poland and people clung to it. It was used to rally around when changes started to happen. Putin by attempting to control the church hopes to ensure it does not un seat or oppose him and to date it hasn't.
There are a lot of strange things going on in Russia right now. The church is one of them and it's going to require a separate blog post all on it's own. However, I will simply reiterate that adopting a single state religion is a step towards Communism and the abolishment of religion all together. However, Pussie riot were just rude and disrespectful. You don't go into a church service and prevent them from worshiping. That was in bad taste.
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