TODAY: May 31st freedom to assemble rally broken up; Putin’s apparent support for right to protest scrutinized; as is recent exchange with anti-Kremlinite musician Yury Shevchuk.  EU-Russia summit begins; Russia recruits human rights lawyers via internet; military prosecutors won’t re-open Katyn. Election monitors have mixed analysis of Georgia’s first post-war poll. Duma’s worst truants are billionaires; architectural struggles; new TV channel

200 people have been detained at a freedom of assembly protest rally which attracted more than 1,000 protesters.  ‘People were thrown to the ground, beaten and shoved into police buses’.  The violent quashing of the protest comes just days after Prime Mister Putin told musician and Kremlin-critic Yury Shevchuk that protests should be allowed to take place in the right conditions and protesters even thanked.  The exchange between Putin and his democracy-advocating adversary ‘left observers intrigued as to why it was allowed to take place and then heavily publicised’.   The New York Times is also inquisitive about the public nature of the verbal altercation, noting that the video has been published with transcripts in Russian and English on Mr Putin’s website.   Putin’s press secretary, Dmitri Peskov, has apparently been quick to assert that Putin’s comments did not amount to allowing protests, for ‘he cannot allow anything, the local authorities do that. Putin said that everything should be in the framework of the law’.   Yury Shevchuk, who is interviewed here on RFE/RL, has apparently said that Putin concurred with his assertion that public discontent is growing.  Washington has also taken notice, sending a disapproving message condemning the detention of peaceful protesters.