{"id":63911,"date":"2018-05-06T16:22:18","date_gmt":"2018-05-06T11:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tns.world\/?p=63911"},"modified":"2018-05-06T16:22:18","modified_gmt":"2018-05-06T11:22:18","slug":"opposition-leader-held-at-moscow-protest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tns.world\/?p=63911","title":{"rendered":"Opposition leader held at Moscow protest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"story-body__introduction\"><strong>Moscow, May 6 (TNS):<\/strong> Riot police have seized Russia&#8217;s most prominent opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, at a Moscow rally two days before Vladimir Putin&#8217;s inauguration.<\/p>\n<p>He was carried away struggling through the crowd of demonstrators, who had gathered to protest at Mr Putin&#8217;s forthcoming fourth term in office.<\/p>\n<p>The rallies in Moscow and Russia&#8217;s second city, St Petersburg, were not approved by the authorities.<\/p>\n<p>At least 1,000 arrests were reportedly made at rallies across Russia.<\/p>\n<p>Early on Sunday, Mr Navalny was released from police custody after being charged with organising a rally and resisting the police.<\/p>\n<p>At the rally, protesters on Moscow&#8217;s Pushkin Square shouted slogans such as &#8220;Down with the tsar!&#8221; &#8211; &#8220;tsar&#8221; was the historical title of Russia&#8217;s pre-revolutionary emperors &#8211; and &#8220;Russia without Putin!&#8221;. In St Petersburg, Russia&#8217;s second city, they shouted: &#8220;Jail the tsar!&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Activists have been using a Russian hashtag on Twitter which translates as &#8220;He&#8217;s not our tsar&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The pro-Kremlin National Liberation Movement held a rival rally at the same location in Moscow.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Alexei Navalny: Russia&#8217;s vociferous Putin critic<\/li>\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Does Putin&#8217;s Russia reject the West?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">Who is Navalny?<\/h2>\n<p>The long-time anti-corruption campaigner is not an elected politician but has led protests against the rule of Mr Putin and his allies since the parliamentary election of 2011.<\/p>\n<p>He was barred from running for president against Mr Putin this year because of a conviction for embezzlement, which he denies, saying the case against him was politically motivated.<\/p>\n<p>He has been arrested at protests on numerous occasions before and is typically held for a few weeks before being released.<\/p>\n<p>Reports say he was forced to stay at a secret location on Friday night in order to make it to the Moscow rally at all.<\/p>\n<p>When the Moscow city authorities warned people of possible &#8220;negative consequences&#8221; of taking part in unsanctioned rallies on Saturday, Mr Navalny tweeted back:\u00a0&#8220;And I would like to warn every one of the negative consequences of non-participation in the rallies.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If you stay at home, Putin&#8217;s gang will tear the country apart and deprive you personally of a future,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">Why are there protests?<\/h2>\n<p>Mr Putin was re-elected the president with more than 76% of the vote, his best ever election performance.<\/p>\n<p>He has effectively ruled Russia since 2000, including a period of four years when he served as prime minister (2008-12). Presidents elected in other countries normally serve a maximum of two terms.<\/p>\n<p>Anger at Mr Putin&#8217;s long hold on power has been compounded by allegations of ballot-rigging at the last and previous presidential elections<\/p>\n<p>Widespread irregularities were reported by some international observers at the election in March.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Putin rival barred from Russian election<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul class=\"story-body__unordered-list\">\n<li class=\"story-body__list-item\">Putin basks in election he could not lose<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 class=\"story-body__crosshead\">How big were Saturday&#8217;s rallies?<\/h2>\n<p>According to OVD-Info, a website which monitors arrests, 1,029 arrests were made\u00a0in 19 cities across Russia, nearly half of them in Moscow.<\/p>\n<p>There was some confusion about numbers with one opposition source talking of 50 arrests at an unapproved rally in Krasnoyarsk, western Siberia, and another of &#8220;at least 10&#8221; while OVD-Info counted 35 in the same city.<\/p>\n<p>Turnout at the rally in the Russian capital was about 1,500, according to police, but Reuters news agency estimated there were &#8220;several thousand&#8221; people at the event.<\/p>\n<p>In a tweet, the mayor of Yekaterinburg, Yevgeny Roizman, estimated a turnout of at least 5,000 in the Urals city.<\/p>\n<div class=\"social-embed\">\n<div class=\"social-embed-post social-embed-twitter\">\n<div class=\"embed embed-twitter\">\n<div class=\"embed-region\" role=\"region\" aria-label=\"Twitter post by @roizmangbn\">\n<div class=\"twitter-wrap\">\n<div class=\"SandboxRoot env-bp-350\" data-twitter-event-id=\"0\">\n<div id=\"twitter-widget-0\" class=\"EmbeddedTweet EmbeddedTweet--edge EmbeddedTweet--mediaForward media-forward js-clickToOpenTarget js-tweetIdInfo tweet-InformationCircle-widgetParent\" lang=\"en\" data-click-to-open-target=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/roizmangbn\/status\/992723903184334848\" data-iframe-title=\"Twitter Tweet\" data-dt-full=\"%{hours12}:%{minutes} %{amPm} - %{day} %{month} %{year}\" data-dt-explicit-timestamp=\"4:13 PM - May 5, 2018\" data-dt-months=\"Jan|Feb|Mar|Apr|May|Jun|Jul|Aug|Sep|Oct|Nov|Dec\" data-dt-am=\"AM\" data-dt-pm=\"PM\" data-dt-now=\"now\" data-dt-s=\"s\" data-dt-m=\"m\" data-dt-h=\"h\" data-dt-second=\"second\" data-dt-seconds=\"seconds\" data-dt-minute=\"minute\" data-dt-minutes=\"minutes\" data-dt-hour=\"hour\" data-dt-hours=\"hours\" data-dt-abbr=\"%{number}%{symbol}\" data-dt-short=\"%{day} %{month}\" data-dt-long=\"%{day} %{month} %{year}\" data-scribe=\"page:tweet\" data-tweet-id=\"992723903184334848\" data-twitter-event-id=\"1\">\n<article class=\"MediaCard\n           MediaCard--mediaForward\n\n           customisable-border\" dir=\"ltr\" data-scribe=\"component:card\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"MediaCard-media\">\n<div class=\"MediaCard-widthConstraint js-cspForcedStyle\" data-style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\n<div class=\"MediaCard-mediaContainer js-cspForcedStyle\" data-style=\"padding-bottom: 75.0000%\"><a class=\"MediaCard-mediaAsset NaturalImage\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/roizmangbn\/status\/992723903184334848\/photo\/1\" data-scribe=\"element:photo\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"NaturalImage-image\" title=\"View image on Twitter\" src=\"https:\/\/pbs.twimg.com\/media\/DcbdHsdXkAA-wXq?format=jpg&amp;name=small\" alt=\"View image on Twitter\" width=\"1200\" height=\"900\" data-image=\"https:\/\/pbs.twimg.com\/media\/DcbdHsdXkAA-wXq\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<div class=\"EmbeddedTweet-tweet\">\n<blockquote class=\"Tweet h-entry js-tweetIdInfo subject expanded\" cite=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/roizmangbn\/status\/992723903184334848\" data-tweet-id=\"992723903184334848\" data-scribe=\"section:subject\">\n<div class=\"Tweet-header\">\n<div class=\"Tweet-brand\">\n<div class=\"Icon Icon--twitter \" title=\"View on Twitter\" role=\"presentation\" aria-label=\"View on Twitter\">\nThere are fears that protests could lead to clashes similar to those that happened in 2012, at Mr Putin&#8217;s last inauguration.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Moscow, May 6 (TNS): Riot police have seized Russia&#8217;s most prominent opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, at a Moscow rally two days before Vladimir Putin&#8217;s inauguration. He was carried away struggling through the crowd of demonstrators, who had gathered to protest at Mr Putin&#8217;s forthcoming fourth term in office. The rallies in Moscow and Russia&#8217;s second [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":63912,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63911"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63913,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63911\/revisions\/63913"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/63912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}