RA’s Daily Russian News Blast – September 27, 2010
TODAY: Anti-mayoral protests in Moscow; Luzhkov returns; Ryazan rally crack down; Go Russia all the rage; Investigative Committee’s growing powers; Polish warmth towards Moscow fading; Islamophobia in the capital?
‘The ground is shaking under Luzhkov’: the thin-ice-walking Moscow Mayor returns to work today after his weeklong break. Apparently hundreds of opposition activists staged a rally in the metropolis on the weekend calling for the reestablishment of Moscow mayoral elections. About 5,000 Samara residents (or 1,000 according to police) demonstrated on Saturday against what they view to be ‘electioneering’ methods employed by United Russia. The Other Russia reports on local authorities in the city of Ryazan using the threat of terrorist attacks as a pretext for banning more than one public event a day; a ruling designed to curb protests, say opposition activists. The European Court of Human Rights has ordered Russia to pay $44,400 for deporting a Tajik opposition activist who faced incarceration and brutality in his homeland.