Police Block Anti-Putin Meeting in St. Petersburg
By Henry Meyer
March 3 (Bloomberg) — Hundreds of policemen, many in riot gear, clashed with demonstrators led by former chess champion Garry Kasparov, who were marching in St. Petersburg against a perceived crackdown on democracy by the Kremlin.
Police in the Russian city warned that today’s gathering of at least 1,000 supporters of Kasparov’s The Other Russia, a loose union of disparate groups opposed to President Vladimir Putin, was an illegal event with participants risking detention.
Law enforcement officers sealed off a square where demonstrators aimed to congregate and were seen making arrests and dragging and beating people with truncheons as protesters began to move toward Nevsky Prospekt, the main thoroughfare of Putin’s native city.
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Kasparov in jail? 😮
Kasps = Bobby
Well I’m not sticking up for Putin, in fact I sympathize with Kasparov’s cause. And I’m not even one of those (apparently the majority of chess-blog readers) who consider the US to be a fascist state and who consider George Bush to be evil personified…
YET, I feel compelled to point out that the branding of some political demonstrations as “illegal”, and even the arrest and/or beating of demonstrators, is not unheard of in the US either — is it?
In fact in my (and Susan’s) resident city under the regime of former Mayor Giuliani (now running for President of the US), ALL demonstrations anywhere City Hall were officially banned; so any demonstration in that area would have been branded illegal.
If demonstrations (illegal or not) are stopped with riot police and demonstrator gets beaten by police…you indeed live in a fascist country…
George Bush has stated many times that he believes in rule by law. Of course he makes the laws and he enforces the laws.
Putin must believe in rule by law also. He makes the laws and he enforces the laws.
Watch out for leaders who believe in rule by law. That is a dangerous statement.
I believe in rule by love. I as a leader must first ask if the purpose of my law is to love the people. only then is the law put in place. then remember that love always over rides the law in any application.
The purpose of government should be to spread love to all members of society. This of course would mean giving the people a free education, free medical help. Stoping the waste on weapons and killing people. There is no room for war with a government desiring to love.
Kasparov is living dangerously.
He should come back to chess.. we need a real champion!!
By the way, in this old photo you see the Kremlin and in the background hotel Russia, in Moscow. Not St. Petersburg.
Kasparov is living dangerously.
He should come back to chess.. we need a real champion!!
He will not come back.
Currently he is held by the chess community “the real champion” and until somebody else comes along who is overwhelmingly better than the rest of the field, this is likely to remain that way. Why should he risk his legacy?
Gabor
well said gabor, anyway he s on a new feature of life, life is more thatn chess at the end of it, even for a worldchampiomç
“Perceived crackdown.’ I just love how the MSM refuses to call a spade a spade. Putin is strangling Russian democracy in the cradle, and he’s nearly killed it. He’s the new Czar.
to peter -> the photo is not so old; according to its info from the digital camera, it was taken less than a year ago