On May 28 between 100 and 150 protesters gathered in the center of Moscow to protest against the summit of Russia and the European Union that was to be held the next day. Protest was also aimed against housing reform carried out by the Russian government, storage of imported nuclear waste in Russia and other topics, which are currently discussed in Russian society. Peaceful protest, for which city authorities originally granted permit, which was later withdrawn, was broken by riot police in full gear which bashed demonstrators with truncheons and arrested 27 activists.
The protest was organized by anarchist, leftist, radical ecological and union activists and attracted people from various parts of Russia, as well as Belarus.
According to the official rules for carrying demonstration and pickets in Russian capital, organizers have to apply for an approval 10 day in advance (which effectively prevents Russian activists from any immediate ’legal’ protest). Authorities are to grant approval or inform about refusal to give approval five days in advance. However, in practice these regulations are usually not observed, as was the case with the May 28 rally, – city authorities withdrew permit for holding a rally one day before. These regulations date back to the late Soviet times, when Soviet authorities introduced rules to effectively control any legal form of protest. At the time these regulations were compared to those of the Pinochet-run Chile, but have not been modified ever since.
At the last moment the rally was declared a meeting with a member of parliament, who supported the protest, but this has not helped to avoid violent attack by the police. Police was present in full force, surrounding the whole of the Pushkin square in the center of Moscow. Negotiations started with protestors, but were broken by arrival of a riot squad in full gear and with dogs. Protesters sat down on the pavement and joined hands, trying to resist arrests and police brutality, but OMON (special riot squad) started to arrest and beat people using truncheons and fists. People were dragged to police trucks. A total of 27 people were arrested that day.
Some of the activists have their faces beaten against a police van, which resulted in one broken nose and bloody injures of another activist, which required medical assistance. In the bus arrested activists were thrown onto the floor, pushed together and prevented from standing up. More beatings occurred, while women activists were sexually harassed and threatened by riot policemen. Attempts to stop this resulted in more beatings. It took police truck about an hour to arrive to the police station (not that there are no traffic jams in Moscow, but the speed of the van must have been soooo slow!), where the arrested were to be kept. Throughout the whole trip riot policemen continued beatings and harassment. Some of the policemen are reported to have Nazi (SS) symbols on their hats, in spite of the fact that Russian government is officially anti-Nazi at the moment!
After being kept in police station for several hours and going through more humiliation (arrested people were not allowed to go to the toilet, etc.) activists were finally released by the end of the day. Injuries of two of the activists that were most severely beaten by the police required medical assistance and were also registered by the doctors. Some of the activists arrested on May 29 showed up next day at the police station to go to court, but the court refused to proceed with their case stating that there were too many of them. After that activists most heavily beaten by the police started to collect witnesses for a trial against riot policemen.
The action gained pretty much media coverage on both Russian TV and in the press. However, most of the reports concentrated on the fact that this was one of the first such large “anti-globalization” protests in Russia. Police violence was mildly criticized. Catchword of “anti-globalization protest’ was one of the reasons why the even gained so much coverage in the Russian media in spite of the relatively small number of protesters. It is noteworthy that protests organized by Stalinists at the US embassy during the Bush visit, although larger in numbers, were not given as much media coverage and were tolerated by both the police and city authorities.