Small Protest Squashed
Small Protest Squashed by Riot Police
By Sergey Chernov
Staff Writer
A protest meeting against electoral violations during the campaign for the State Duma and Sunday’s election was suppressed by police at around 4:30 p.m. on Monday.
Eleven protestors were detained, including Andrei Dmitriyev, the leader of the local branch Eduard Limonov’s banned National-Bolshevik Party (NBP), and Sergei Gulyayev, a former Yabloko deputy in St. Petersburg who now leads Narod movement.
REUTERS/Alexander Demianchuk
Flagged as a day of mourning for political freedom (“Pominki po Svobode”) the meeting held on Pionerskaya Ploshchad drew between 50 and 100 protestors, said Gulyayev, who spoke by mobile phone from police precinct No. 38, where the detained protestors were being held Monday evening.
“Three hours have already passed, but we have not even been told what we are doing here at all,” Gulyayev told The St. Petersburg Times.
“They [the police] are hastily cooking up protocols. There are some ‘witnesses,’ who even weren’t on the scene.”
According to Gulyayev, the police began stopping protestors far from the location of the meeting.
“Several people from the Oborona [Defense] movement were detained in the metro,” he said. “When they started to detain people [at the rally], people stepped aside and were watching what was happening from a distance.
Gulyayev said that the relevant City Hall committee authorized the rally.
“We sent an application on Thursday, signed by myself and Andrei Dmitriyev,”
he said.
“On Thursday evening I got a call from the Committee for Law, Public Order and Security and was told that ‘we can’t allow you to picket the election committee on St. Isaac’s Square, but we can allow you to hold a meeting at the same time on the same day near TYuZ theater on Pionerskaya Ploshchad.’ I agreed and said, ‘No problem.’ They asked me, ‘Which way can we send [the permission] to you?’ I said ‘Send it by email or fax’.”
According to Gulyayev, he received a letter with the offer, but when he and the other protestors arrived at the location, he was told by a senior police officer that it was an “unsanctioned event.”
“He said ‘We were called an hour ago by [Committee for Law, Public Order and Security chief] Nikolai Valeryevich Strumentov and said he did not permit it,’” Gulyayev said.
“I called Strumentov and he said ‘You agreed to the location only today.’ I noted that actually we spoke on Thursday, and so now there are no formal reasons to reject us. But he said, ‘We won’t let you hold this event in any case.’”
According to Gulyayev, OMON special forces riot police were ordered to start detaining people almost immediately.
“People kept arriving, some with flags, and there was a command to the OMON to detain everybody, and they did it in quite a hard way,” he said.
“Now we have been here [in the police station] for over three hours without being charged, which is not legal, so we are here completely perplexed about what we are doing here.”
The police’s strong presence, complete with several heavy trucks, buses and fully-equipped riot policemen, was also seen on St. Isaac’s Square, the location originally suggested by the protestors.
Calls to Police Precinct No. 38 for police reaction went unanswered on Monday evening.
The St. Petersburg Times, #1329, December 2, 2007.
By Sergey Chernov
Staff Writer
A protest meeting against electoral violations during the campaign for the State Duma and Sunday’s election was suppressed by police at around 4:30 p.m. on Monday.
Eleven protestors were detained, including Andrei Dmitriyev, the leader of the local branch Eduard Limonov’s banned National-Bolshevik Party (NBP), and Sergei Gulyayev, a former Yabloko deputy in St. Petersburg who now leads Narod movement.
REUTERS/Alexander Demianchuk
Flagged as a day of mourning for political freedom (“Pominki po Svobode”) the meeting held on Pionerskaya Ploshchad drew between 50 and 100 protestors, said Gulyayev, who spoke by mobile phone from police precinct No. 38, where the detained protestors were being held Monday evening.
“Three hours have already passed, but we have not even been told what we are doing here at all,” Gulyayev told The St. Petersburg Times.
“They [the police] are hastily cooking up protocols. There are some ‘witnesses,’ who even weren’t on the scene.”
According to Gulyayev, the police began stopping protestors far from the location of the meeting.
“Several people from the Oborona [Defense] movement were detained in the metro,” he said. “When they started to detain people [at the rally], people stepped aside and were watching what was happening from a distance.
Gulyayev said that the relevant City Hall committee authorized the rally.
“We sent an application on Thursday, signed by myself and Andrei Dmitriyev,”
he said.
“On Thursday evening I got a call from the Committee for Law, Public Order and Security and was told that ‘we can’t allow you to picket the election committee on St. Isaac’s Square, but we can allow you to hold a meeting at the same time on the same day near TYuZ theater on Pionerskaya Ploshchad.’ I agreed and said, ‘No problem.’ They asked me, ‘Which way can we send [the permission] to you?’ I said ‘Send it by email or fax’.”
According to Gulyayev, he received a letter with the offer, but when he and the other protestors arrived at the location, he was told by a senior police officer that it was an “unsanctioned event.”
“He said ‘We were called an hour ago by [Committee for Law, Public Order and Security chief] Nikolai Valeryevich Strumentov and said he did not permit it,’” Gulyayev said.
“I called Strumentov and he said ‘You agreed to the location only today.’ I noted that actually we spoke on Thursday, and so now there are no formal reasons to reject us. But he said, ‘We won’t let you hold this event in any case.’”
According to Gulyayev, OMON special forces riot police were ordered to start detaining people almost immediately.
“People kept arriving, some with flags, and there was a command to the OMON to detain everybody, and they did it in quite a hard way,” he said.
“Now we have been here [in the police station] for over three hours without being charged, which is not legal, so we are here completely perplexed about what we are doing here.”
The police’s strong presence, complete with several heavy trucks, buses and fully-equipped riot policemen, was also seen on St. Isaac’s Square, the location originally suggested by the protestors.
Calls to Police Precinct No. 38 for police reaction went unanswered on Monday evening.
The St. Petersburg Times, #1329, December 2, 2007.