Annals of the Neo-Soviet Crackdown on Protest

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As Publius Pundit has previously reported, the political coalition known as "The Other Russia" led by former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov and chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov has held three major public demonstrations in Russia in the last six months: One in Moscow, one in St. Petersburg and one in Nizhny Novgorod. Each time, the response of the Russian authorities has been to deny permission for a public gathering and then attack the demonstration with riot police when it occurs. A fourth march is planned, this time in Moscow and St. Petersburg simultaneously, for the middle of this month. The Kremlin is in the midst of a three-sided attack on these demonstrators before they even set foot to pavement.

First, the Moscow Timesreports that a Moscow court has now upheld the denial of permission to march for the Moscow protest last December. Moscow authorities told the court that an offer of an alternative venue had been made; Other Russia called that a "lie."

Another report in the Moscow Times indicates that the Kremlin is now escalating its level of oppression in Moscow in anticipation of the second demonstration. According to the paper:

The Moscow City Duma passed a bill Wednesday giving City Hall the power to ban a demonstration because it is near a monument or historical building and requiring political parties to prove they are legally registered every time they want to rally. Almost every opposition demonstration is in some way connected with well-known monuments, and in the city center, where opposition rallies are held, almost every building is a historical monument, Yabloko Deputy Yevgeny Bunimovich said after Wednesday's session. The bill also limits the number of participants in any outdoor gathering to two per square meter and specifies that attendees at indoor gatherings must not outnumber available chairs at the venue.

The Kremlin has already banned the second Moscow protest and is apparently setting the stage for a total lockdown followed by extreme actions against those who dare to speak out. Finally, in the third prong of the attack, it has issued a permit for 15,000 pro-Kremlin members of the "Young Guard" youth cult to march on the same day, inviting confrontation.

Meanwhile, as Moscow devotes its energies to cracking down on dissent, its residents suffer untold hardships. For instance, the MT reports that "Moscow placed 201 out of the 215 cities surveyed in terms of health and sanitation according to Mercer Human Resource Consulting, a U.S.-based company that advises global companies on how to structure remuneration packages for their expatriate employees."

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