Opposition clashes with police in Moscow

MOSCOW -- Riot police beat and detained protesters as thousands defied an official ban and attempted to stage a rally Saturday against President Vladimir Putin's government, which opponents accuse of rolling back freedoms Russians have enjoyed since the end of Soviet communism.

A similar march planned for Sunday in St. Petersburg has also been banned by authorities.A coalition of opposition groups organized the "Dissenters March" to protest the economic and social policies of President Vladimir Putin as well as a series of Kremlin actions that critics say has stripped Russians of many political rights.

Thousands of police officers massed to keep the demonstrators off Pushkin Square, beating some protesters and detaining many others, including Garry Kasparov, the former world chess champion who has emerged as the most prominent leader of the opposition alliance.

Police said 170 people had been detained but a Kasparov aide, Marina Litvinovich, said as many as 600 people were detained -- although she said about half were released quickly. Kasparov, whom witnesses said was seized as he tried to lead a small group of demonstrators through lines of police ringing Pushkin Square, was freed late Saturday after he was fined $38 for participating in the rally.

"It is no longer a country ... where the government tries to pretend it is playing by the letter and spirit of the law," Kasparov said outside the court building.

"We now stand somewhere between Belarus and Zimbabwe," two dictatorships that have cracked down on opposition, he said.

It was the fourth time in recent months that anti-Putin demonstrations -- all called Dissenters Marches -- have been broken up with force or smothered by a huge police presence. Earlier protests were thwarted in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Nizhny Novgorod.

In a speech at Pushkin Square, Mikhail Kasyanov, Putin's first prime minister but now a leading opponent, denounced the arrests and beatings.

"Everyone should ask the question: What is happening with our authorities -- are they still sane, or have they gone mad?" he said, as the crowd chanted "Shame on the government."

Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, who observed the march, said authorities were seeking only to maintain order, not to interfere with the exercising of political rights.

"We live in a democratic country, a free country, and we give the possibility to everybody to express their agreement or disagreement," he said, in remarks carried on Russia's Channel 1 television.