Former Chess Champion Is Detained at March in Moscow (4/14/07)

Judgement

is a Forum Moderator Alumnus
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/world/europe/15russia.html?ref=world

Former chess champion Garry Kasparov was arrested, along with 200 other protesters in the third "Dissenters' March" in Moscow. The rally was held by a dissenters' organization called Other Russia. This rally was noticed more because of the well-known people running the rally and the way that they were pursued relentlessly by authorities; the rally was organized by Kasparov and former prime minister Mikhail M. Kasyanov.

Other Russia has taken to street protests since they view it as the only way that they have left to voice their position; Kasyanov's and Kasparov's respective websites were blocked, but no one knows who did it.

"Other Russia was refused a permit to march in Moscow, but defied the ban, as it has in two previous marches in St. Petersburg and the Volga River city of Nizhny Novgorod. Authorities said roughly 9,000 police and Interior Ministry troops, known as OMON, were deployed in Moscow on Saturday." (NYT)
 
They think that Putin is holding back democracy in Russia but the demonstration was small and Putin is hugely popular in Russia
 
My European History teacher was in Belgium last week and met up with a good friend of hers who lives part time in Russia- evidently the friend loves Putin. Apparently she said that the Russians know that he's a dictator, but he's making improvements so they don't care. Of course, the friend also said that Khruschev was a fantastic leader, which is debatable, so I'd take that with a grain of salt.

I've also heard a rumor that they were given a permit to protest but not a permit to march, and thus the arrests- can anyone confirm?
 
I recently read Searching for Bobby Fischer, and according to its author Soviet chess was pretty politicized, so it's not like Kasparov is the Russian version of when an athlete takes up a position in western democracies. If he really thinks Putin is going down the wrong path, that's a fairly strong warning, especially since I can't see much in it for him to engage in such protests against a popular leader.
 
They think that Putin is holding back democracy in Russia but the demonstration was small and Putin is hugely popular in Russia
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being from Russia I can tell you that Putin is hardly popular. I don't know the exact statistics but it looks like Putin is about as popular in Russia as Bush is in the US. I really don't know where people are getting this 'popular' idea from except possibly that he is far more liked than Yeltsin ;/

anyway this whole thing just makes me scared of what might happen in the future, but at the same time glad that I'm out of there.
 
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