While the daytime protest outside of a cultural center proceeded largely without incident, the second rally in the evening was brutally dispersed by OMON riot police. In a move reminiscent of last summer’s protests in the stricken industrial town of Pikalevo, relatives of deceased miners blocked off a railroad and demanded a meeting with the local mayor, the leadership of the Raspadskaya mine, and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. In response, OMON officers violently broke up the rally, beating dozens of protesters and detaining 28 individuals.

While some reports say that protesters throwing rocks at police during the fight injured more than a dozen officers, all 28 detainees were released on Monday and Kemerovo Regional Police Chief Aleksandr Yelin said that the charges they might face are for having blocked transportation.

The opposition movement Solidarity has released a statement in response to the incident.

Statement in support of Kuznetsk Basin miners
May 16, 2010

The Solidarity movement is outraged by the cruel and cynical actions of the authorities who used OMON to beat and detain grieving and despairing miners and their relatives on the evening of May 14.

The Putin-Goebbels propaganda machine maintains that the spontaneous rally was organized by criminals, and that neither miners nor their relatives were noticed at the rally. This time, they won’t get away with this brazen and impudent official propaganda lie. The entire country has seen the videos of the beatings.

We welcome the initiative by residents of the Kuznetsk Basin to organize protest rallies in defense of their legitimate demands, including the immediate release of all those arrested in Mezhdurechensk, increased wages in commercial mines in the region, and an end to the persecution of the activities of independent trade unions.

We also feel that it is necessary to prosecute the sadistic OMON who cruelly beat the demonstrators.

We are prepared to offer legal and informational support to the Union of Kuznetsk Basin Residents and are convinced that our combined actions will bring about a result.

Our contact information: solidarnost.info@gmail.com, tel. 625-48-14

Translation by theotherrussia.org.

The Rally of Dissent on Triumfalnaya Square, part of the ongoing Strategy-31 initiative by the Other Russia coalition, saw an increased number of participants compared to recent events. Opposition groups put estimates at between 700 and 1000 protesters.

Among those detained were former deputy prime minister and leader of the Solidarity opposition movement Boris Nemtsov, Solidarity leader Ilya Yashin, prominent political activists Roman Dobrokhotov and Nikolai Lyaskin, Memorial human rights organization chairman Oleg Orlov, and Lev Ponomarev of the organization For Human Rights.

Also detained was National Bolshevik leader Eduard Limonov, who organized the rally together with former Soviet dissident and prominent rights activist Lyudmila Alexeyeva and activist Konstantin Kosyakin. Limonov was detained several minutes after appearing at the rally, but was able to answer several questions from journalists.

“We, the citizens, have the right to be here on this square,” Limonov declared. “Whether the police have this right is a big question.”

Law enforcement officials, which included internal military forces and the notoriously brutal OMON police forces, were reportedly harsher than usual in their treatment of detainees. Eyewitnesses noted that a girl, bloody after being beaten by police, was among those in an OMON bus on its way to a police station.

Protesters attempted to block the road when the buses began to depart from the square, but were dispersed by police.

Journalists, photographers and cameramen had been cordoned off early in the evening into a small space near the exit of a nearby metro station.

The large number of participants, however, was somewhat overwhelming for the police.

“Usually they manage to detain all the activists in 30 minutes,” said photographer Ilya Varlamov, “but this time it took two hours.”

Many protesters clipped tags to their coats with the phrase “Article 31 of the Russian Constitution,” providing for freedom of assembly, which they hoped would inform the police of “what they were detaining.”

Sunday marked Nemtsov’s first time participating in the series of rallies, dubbed Strategy 31 by its organizers. “I haven’t participated up until now in the rallies on the 31st,” the former deputy prime minister said on his blog. “It seemed to me that with Limonov in charge, it wasn’t worth our ideological differences. On December 31, my attitude toward the rallies changed. It became shameful, upon seeing that while we drank champagne and snacked on olivye, OMON officers were driving the distinguished Lyudmila Alexeyeva onto a police bus.”

The rally on December 31 ended in the detention of approximately 60 of 400 activists present, including the 82-year old Alexeyeva. Her arrest in particular drew immediate scorn from domestic rights groups as well as the United States and various European governments.

Like all previous Rallies of Dissent, Sunday’s demonstration was held without official sanction from the Moscow city authorities. While organizers submitted a proper application, the mayor’s office stated that “winter festivities” had been planned for Triumfalnaya Square on Sunday evening and advised them to pick another location. Organizers of the rally maintain that federal authorities are simply continuing to do whatever they can to block citizens’ rights to exercise freedom of assembly.

Analagous rallies were also held on Sunday in St. Petersburg, Astrakhan, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Omsk, Murmansk and other cities througout Russia.

Valmarov’s photographs of the rally can be seen by clicking here.

In total, around 90 people were arrested around the city, according to the Moscow police press-service. Eduard Limonov, a leader of the banned National Bolshevik Party and the Other Russia, was among those detained.

The event was orchestrated by the Other Russia opposition coalition. Organizers of the protest said they had done everything to obtain permits for the event, but were rebuffed by city officials.

Small groups of demonstrators managed to stage marches in other parts of the city. Around 150 people bearing banners and flags walked for around a kilometers from the Paveletsky Rail Terminal to the Serpukhovskaya Ploschad.

A police spokesman described the protest as “isolated attempts at hooliganism, which law enforcement officers suppressed in time.”

A group of retired generals, who came out to march in the demonstration, were also violently dispersed by OMON special forces. The generals were thrown roughly into waiting police trucks.

The latest reports by the Sobkor®ru news agency indicate that court proceedings have been started against the arrested protestors.

A demonstration against corruption and human rights abuses has been violently shut down by OMON Special Forces in Nazran. Police blocked passage for demonstrators in the capital of the Republic of Ingushetia, firing shots over the crowd and moving forward with clubs. A small group of protesters responded with violence, attacking police with stones and Molotov cocktails. Two buildings have burned and at least one person has been injured.

Earlier in the day, between 300 and 1000 people attempted to assemble in a central square of the capital. They were complaining about regional government policies, unorthodox crackdowns by security services in the region, and recent State Duma elections, which are widely believed to have been rigged. Many participants carried signs calling for the resignation of Ingush president Murat Zyazikov, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin. The rally was originally sanctioned by authorities, but was forbidden in line with a regional state of emergency instituted on January 25th.

As picketers neared the square, heavily armed OMON agents blocked surrounding streets. According to eye-witnesses, several youths tried to break through police lines, and officers responded with force, beating demonstrators with batons and firing warning shots, before chasing the crowd. Demonstrators responded by throwing stones and flaming Molotov cocktails at the officers.

At least one individual has suffered a gunshot wound, and over 100 people, many of them teenagers, have been arrested or detained. A hotel and the offices of a local State-run newspaper have been damaged by fire. Journalists covering the demonstration, including correspondents from Ekho Moskvy (Echo of Moscow) radio, Novaya Gazeta, Radio Liberty, and other mass-media were also apprehended by police. Citing safety concerns, authorities have transported them to North Ossetia, a neighboring region. Police casualties are unknown.

Ingushetia, which is located in the North Caucasus and borders Chechnya, has seen a rising tide of violence and terrorism activity, which has been met with a firm fist from authorities. A low-level insurgency has especially targeted law enforcement officials in the primarily Muslim Republic, and regional command has responded by tripling police presence. On January 25th, the area was deemed a “zone of anti-terrorist operation,” an emergency ruling which grants the security services greater powers. Restrictions on citizens, such as searches, will be introduced shortly.

Before the protest began, the whole branch of Ingushetia’s OMON Special Forces refused orders to disperse the meeting. The administration then requested outside help, and officers from neighboring regions were moved into Nazran.

Authorities have decided to take a firm stance against demonstrators. Musa Medov, the regional Interior Minister, explained their plan to the Associated Press:

“Everyone even indirectly involved in organizing this protest will be severely punished.”