| Police, Kremlin security officers and plainclothes
officers forcefully broke up a peaceful demonstration against
nuclear waste imports on Red Square on Thursday, cuffing young
protesters in the face before hauling them by their collars to
waiting police cars and roughly slamming them in.
Twenty-four activists and about half a dozen journalists, including
camera crews from Reuters and the new Ekho television company,
were detained by police at the demonstration, held on the eve
of the 16th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster.
Police yanked the film from the cameras and video cameras of
many of those who photographed the event; journalists loudly complained
that their equipment had been damaged.
The journalists were released almost immediately, while the
protesters were still being held late Thursday evening. The protesters
were supposed to appear in court Friday on charges of participating
in an unauthorized meeting, Interfax reported. "Everything
went well because we managed to draw attention to our concerns
about importing nuclear waste," said Alisa Nikulina, a member
of the Ecodefense group and one of the organizers of the demonstration.
"We brought it t othe Kremlin and they wouldn't let it in."
The protest was against a law that President Vladimir Putin
signed in July allowing spent nuclear fuel to be imported for
reprocessing.
Environmentalists say Russia has enough problems with its own
nuclear waste that it can ill deal with any other countries' waste.
Supporters of the law say the imports could earn the country
$20 billion over 10 years. The demonstration started when 30 or
so protesters in their late teens and early twenties who had been
mingling with tourists on Red Square converged in front of Spassky
Gate and donned white overalls, resembling radiation suits and
bearing signs saying "OYaT," the Russian acronym for
spent nuclear fuel.
They dropped onto the ground in front of a low chain some 25
meters from the gate that leads into the Kremlin and began to
crawl slowly and silently forward. Other protesters distributed
leaflets.
Nadezhda Kutepova, from the Planet of Hopes organization in
the Chelyabinsk region, said before she was detained that the
Chernobyl disaster should be a warning to those who handle nuclear
materials.
An explosion and fire at Ukraine's Chernobyl nuclear power plant
on April 26, 1986, sent radiation across Europe and contaminated
large parts of the Soviet Union. The disaster has led to thousands
of deaths, especially among those who took part in the cleanup,
and 7 million people in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine are estimated
to suffer physical or psychological effects of radiation related
to the Chernobyl catastrophe. A series of commemorations and protests
are planned across the nation Friday.
Thursday's protest at first had an element of farce to it, with
a group of astonished American tourists stopping to take snapshots.
The lone policeman in front of the gate blocked individual protesters
with his legs and turned some back, but the group kept creeping
forward. One reached within five meters of the gate.
Then a senior police officer and a half dozen other policemen
arrived in cars. A dozen members of the Federal Guard Service
emerged from the Kremlin with a plainclothesman bearing a truncheon.
The officers began driving the young people back, and they quickly
retreated behind the chain. One flashed a "V" for victory.
But this was not enough for the officers, and they began cuffing
people and throwing them to the ground. They dragged the protesters
over the cobblestones and shoved them into cars.
One officer referred to the protesters as hooligans and asked
them why they could not have protested somewhere else.
Having snuffed the protest, the law enforcement officers began
rounding up those who had taken photographs or filmed the scuffle,
demanding to see IDs and pulling film from cameras.
"It's a breach of freedom of speech," said Sergei
Alexashkin, 20, a law student and member of Molodyozhnoye Pravozashchitnoye
Dvizheniye, or Young Civil Rights Movement, who had traveled about
200 kilometers from the city of Tula for the event. "It was
a protest addressed to the president," he added.
Ecodefense's Nikulina also said the protest was aimed at the
president. "These imports are opposed by 90 percent of the
population," she said. "It is understandable that the
Nuclear Power Ministry supports the imports, but in the face of
public opposition the government, including the president, should
not." President Vladimir Putin once said in an interview
to the Toronto Globe and Mail and Canadian television that he
harbors a secret admiration for environmental activists and was
thinking of joining their ranks after he quits the Kremlin. "To
be honest," he said, "I've always admired people who
devote their lives to environmental problems. I've watched with
astonishment as a group of people on a little boat tries to oppose
a huge military or industrial ship. I must say this inspires only
sympathy."
However, his admiration was not shared by the officers who dealt
with the protesters Thursday.
The police could not be immediately reached for comment, but
a spokeswoman for the Federal Guard Service, or FSO, said the
demonstration had been properly broken up. "In this case
the law was correctly observed," said the spokeswoman, who
asked not to be identified. "The territory of the Kremlin
and Red Square is a special zone and photos can only be taken
there with permission."
Asked why tourists were allowed to take photos freely on Red
Square, she said they were not professionals and "there is
a big difference."
She denied that the officers' actions amounted to censorship.
"There are rules on how you should behave on the Kremlin
proper, and these rules are well known to all journalists. You
need to get permission to take photos," she said, adding
that most people who apply get permission.
Oleg Panfilov of the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations,
said the officers had no right to destroy the journalists' film.
"According to the media law, journalists have complete
freedom to do their work covering meetings and demonstrations,
even if the protest is an illegal one. No one should stop them
from doing their work," he said.
"Unfortunately, the authorities are using force more and
more against journalists. In my opinion, the Russian authorities
have completely lost their sense of respect toward journalists,"
he said.
Nikulina said organizers did not even consider applying for
a permit "because they wouldn't have given it to us."
"We consider that the only forms of protest that the authorities
allow are those that don't trouble them," she said.
She said the Yabloko party had wanted to hold a public meeting
on nuclear waste imports Friday and had been refused a permit.
See also:
the
original at
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YABLOKO
against Nulcear Waste Imports
Land
Reform
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