The Moscow Times, Russia
April 16 2007

Like It or Not, the Word is Authoritarian

Of the epithets regularly applied to President Vladimir Putin and his
political practices, "authoritarian" in particular seems to rankle
the Kremlin and its supporters. But what other word comes to mind
when 9,000 riot police officers are sent out onto the streets to
handle several thousand protesters, as they were Saturday?

Part of the explanation for the government reaction Saturday is that,
with Putin leaving office next year, those in power are determined to
make sure nothing like the 2004 Orange Revolution in Ukraine happens
here. It is difficult to see how Saturday’s gathering posed such a
threat.

One of the leaders of the event was former Prime Minister Mikhail
Kasyanov, whose liberal economic credentials, along with allegations
about corrupt dealings while still in government, would make it
impossible for him to win election in today’s Russia.

Another, Eduard Limonov, is a writer whose National Bolshevik Party
has been stripped of its official recognition and, despite offensive
nationalist rhetoric in the past, has been in recent years limited to
preaching social populism and staging publicity stunts.

The third, Garry Kasparov, who is handicapped in the eyes of much of
the public because he shares Kasyanov’s liberal bent, also carries
the additional baggage of being an Armenian Jew in a country where
ethnicity is still a major issue.

There is little chance that Kasparov, for example, could become for
today’s Russia the kind of figure Viktor Yushchnko became for the
Ukraine of 2004. The police detained him anyway Saturday.

There were even more preposterous detentions. A Moscow Times reporter
— himself detained while trying to get comments from other marchers
who had been corralled — overheard a young man explaining to his
girlfriend by cell phone that he could not meet her as promised
because he had been detained on the platform of the Pushkinskaya
metro station.

Another man told a call-in show on Ekho Moskvy radio that he, his
wife and young child had been detained while they were trying to see
what was happening. His wife and child were grabbed and bundled into
one police vehicle, while he was stuffed into another. They were
released not too long after.

Some of the younger members of the crowd wearing National Bolshevik
regalia did start rushing the riot police following the speeches on
Turgenev Square, apparently trying to provoke a confrontation. But
the police did not bother detaining these protesters. They simply
shoved them back.

The deliberate targeting of Kasparov and the arbitrary detentions
were part of the day’s absurd nature. They provide more than a hint
of its authoritarian nature, too.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress