Manifest tens of thousands of people against Putin in Moscow

Moscow Russian opposition met Tuesday to tens of thousands of people at a rally in Moscow against Vladimir Putin, a challenge to the hardening of the regime, which on Monday launched an unprecedented wave of records against the movement's leaders. The movement brought together "more than 100 thousand people," he said from a podium Sergei Udaltsov, the leader of the Left Front, one of the main leaders of this unprecedented protest against the regime. The meeting ended "without incident" in Sakharov Avenue at 12:15 pm GMT, said police, who recorded 15 000 people at the end of the event, having first given the figure of 18 thousand people. Udaltsov finally came to the notice of the Research Committee, the leading federal agency in this area in the country. In their placards, the protesters returned to take up the slogan "Russia without Putin" that repeated from the December protests. The police took the stand to deliver two requirements to attend the Research Committee, the same who received the anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny nationalist movement leader and Ilia Iachin Solidarnost, among other opponents. In St. Petersburg between 5 000 and 6 000 people also marched chanting "Russia without Putin" and carrying white balloons, the color chosen as a symbol of protest. At the same time, off the country's political elite gathered in the Kremlin to celebrate the national holiday, Putin launched a new warning against the demonstrators. "Anything that weakens the country and divide society is unacceptable to us. Any decision or action that leads to social and economic disorder is unacceptable," the president said. The rally on Tuesday had been authorized by the authorities after lengthy negotiations. More than 12 thousand members of the security forces-police, anti-riot units and Interior Ministry troops, were deployed in the capital, officials said.

Wave records against opposition leaders

This great event is the first since the inauguration last May 7 in the Kremlin from Putin to his third term as president, after the years 2000-2008 and after an interval of four years he served as Prime Minister . After five months of protests, unprecedented for a decade, the regime is tightening repression against the opposition movement. Several Internet sites of the opposition, like the Echo of Moscow radio, the satellite television and newspaper Dojd Novaya Gazeta, were inaccessible during the day on Tuesday. On Monday, the Research Committee recorded the homes of a dozen leaders and members of the opposition, including Alexei and Sergei Udaltsov Navalny. The Committee justified these operations by an ongoing investigation into "mass disturbances of public order" during the demonstration on May 6 in Moscow, a day before the inauguration of Putin, in which there were several demonstrators and policemen injured. The Russian parliament last week adopted fast-track a controversial law which opens the way to a fine of several thousand euros to participants or organizers of demonstrations. Putin signed the law last Friday, ignoring a veto that he recommended his own adviser for human rights. The first large opposition demonstrations began in December, after the victory in the parliamentary elections United Russia with about 50% of the vote, the opposition achieved by massive fraud.