RA’s Daily Russia News Blast – Aug 1, 2011
TODAY: Strategy 31 protesters detained in Moscow and St. Petersburg; Polish crash report says Russia partly to blame; abortion laws could get tougher; businessman Darren Keane likened to Magnitsky; Matviyenko’s secret registration blocks opposition; fears of pre-election crackdown; LiveJournal attack politically motivated? Kozlov will not be released; boat sinks, killing 9.
RIA Novosti is offering scant details, but says that 40 protesters were arrested in Moscow on Sunday for participating in an unsanctioned rally. The protesters were part of the Strategy 31 movement, which rallies for freedom of assembly, and were not detained until they broke their initial seated protest to march towards the Kremlin, says the Washington Post. Other reports suggest that there were only 20 protesters in Moscow, flanked by 100 journalists. A similar protest was also reportedly held in St. Petersburg, with 50 arrests. Press TV says that the Moscow protesters called for a boycott of the upcoming elections. Most of the blame in Poland’s official report on the Smolensk plane crash lands on Polish officials, but it also states that Russian air traffic controllers gave incorrect and confusing landing instructions to pilots, and blames the crash, finally, on ‘an accumulation of causes’. Abortion laws are set to get tougher, says RFE/RL, with a number of legislative changes on the cards later this year, including the possible scrapping of free abortions at state clinics. The lawyer of British businessman Darren Keane, of the Storm International gambling holding, is likening him to Sergei Magnitsky, as he is severely ill in pretrial detention and ‘could die at any moment’.