Protest performances. October

Against the call

In October, the protest against conscription into the army acquired a rather significant sound. On the day of the beginning of the autumn conscription campaign - October 1 - 2 actions were held - in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

In St. Petersburg, activists of the youth "Yabloko" distributed leaflets to passers-by and invited everyone to comment on which principle of forming the Russian army is closer to them - a professional army or an army by conscription.

of the League for the abolition of conscription took place on Pushkinskaya Square in Moscow A demonstration , during which the organizers of the action turned to citizens with a proposal to sign up for an initiative group to hold a referendum on the abolition of military service.

October 24 and 25, respectively, in Nizhny Novgorod and [Samara
expressed their protest most radically The Anarchists of Novosibirsk . At the beginning of the month, for a week, members of the organization distributed leaflets in the military registration and enlistment offices of the city and on the streets adjacent to them: "Run, soldier, run!", "The armed people will defend themselves!", "Freedom to the Chechen people!", "Death to those who ordered the war on Caucasus!" In addition, the activists of the movement, penetrating the territory of the military commissariats, blocked the doors with glue and replaced the poster "Rights of the draftee" with an alternative one.

All-Russian public sector protest action

The largest protest action in October was organized by the trade union of public education workers.

The decision to hold the All-Russian protest action on October 12 was made after the authorities ignored the decision of the 5th Congress of the Trade Union demanding wage indexation, sent on July 3 to the president.

in Moscow Almost 5,000 educators, healthcare workers, and students gathered on Gorbaty Bridge . Among the main demands of the protesters were higher salaries and the resignation of the government.

in Kurgan There are about 3,000 doctors and teachers with placards "A poor teacher is a disgrace to the state!" and "Gentlemen ministers and deputies, try to live on our salary!" marched in a column through the streets of the city. Oleg Bogomolov, the governor of the region, received some of the picketers at the local Palace of Youth Creativity, where, after listening to their demands, he promised to redirect them to the "federal center".

In Khabarovsk, a demonstration of 8,000 people, mostly students and schoolchildren, took place along the central street of the city. The protesters called on the authorities to double scholarships and pensions, complained that the region's wage arrears to social workers exceeded 100 million rubles. "The protesters adopted a resolution demanding the resignation of the Russian government.

In Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the rally was preceded by a car rally: a column of several dozen trade union cars drove through the city center with black balloons tied to them and the inscription "11" (symbolizing an 11% increase in salaries for state employees promised by the Russian government).

In Chita, about 1,000 Trans-Baikal doctors, teachers, and cultural workers gathered on the city's central square with banners "Your promises are a bluff, resign Gref!"

In Krasnoyarsk, about 1,000 people gathered for a rally in front of the regional administration building.

In Saratov, about 700 people came to the rally.

In addition, protest actions were held in Rostov-on-Don, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod, Smolensk, Volgograd, Krasnoyarsk and other cities.

The initiative of educators was picked up by workers in the medical field. So Omsk doctors went even further. They also wrote a letter to Putin and held a protest action on October 12 against the selective increase in wages for "primary care doctors" promised by the president a month ago (as it turned out - only for district doctors and nurses of polyclinics). If the authorities do not pay attention to the problem, the doctors announced their readiness to start a hunger strike.

Anti-racist rallies

In early October, Peruvian student Enrique Angelis Hurtado Arturo was killed in Voronezh. This was not the first attack on an international student in the city, but it was this murder that prompted several anti-racist rallies in mid-October.

On October 12, foreign students of Voronezh went to an unsanctioned rally. The event was attended by about 300 people who marched in a column to the main square of Voronezh shouting: "We want to live, we want to be friends!" There, the students encircled the monument to Lenin and organized a picket in front of the regional administration.

Yury Bykov, the head of the public security militia of the Central Internal Affairs Directorate of the region, addressed the audience and assured the students that the law enforcement agencies of the region were doing their best to solve the murder.

On October 15 , a March against hatred was held in Voronezh, organized by the International Youth Human Rights Movement, the Youth Network against Racism and Intolerance, and the Young Europe international movement.

to the Voronezh mayor's office Members of the Nashi organization also applied to hold a rally and procession. However, the city authorities allowed only the rally, and the procession was denied without explanation.

On October 24, despite the ban, the demonstrators took to the roadway of Revolution Avenue. At the same time, a traffic police car appeared in front of the column, and police officers ordered the oncoming cars to stop and clear the road through a loudspeaker.

While the authorities in Voronezh reacted quite loyally to the unauthorized expression of protest, in Moscow such an action became unacceptable.

On October 14, about 20 foreign students of the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia in Moscow gathered near the main building of the university to honor the memory of Angeles Hurtado, who died in Voronezh, with a minute of silence. They were going to submit to the administration of the university an appeal to the government of Moscow and the government of the Russian Federation with a request to transfer students from Voronezh to universities in other cities and toughen article 115 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which is usually applied to those who attack foreign students. Two activists from Autonomous Action and one from the Movement Against Violence joined the action.

The administration warned the students that "the action is undesirable." A few minutes after the start of the event, people "in civilian clothes" approached the protesters and began to demand to disperse. Police officers who appeared later began to check documents, accompanying their actions with threats of expulsion from the university.

When the students dispersed , the police detained several activists: their passports were taken away, and they themselves were escorted to the nearest department. At first, the detainees were accused of organizing an unauthorized rally, but the search did not give the desired result: no posters or leaflets were found. Then the article was reclassified as "petty hooliganism." The protocol recorded that the protesters used foul language, violated public order and did not obey the demands of the police.

Forbidden

Since the authorities can legally control the conduct of protests to one degree or another, they use this opportunity as a mechanism to manipulate the protest activity of citizens. In October, the following protest actions were banned and interfered with.

On October 27, in Moscow, mothers from Beslan tried to hold a picket on Bolshaya Dmitrovka in protest against the actions of the Prosecutor General's Office. The main slogans of the action: "Putin, Patrushev, Nurgaliev - to account for the blood of our children!", "Who will be responsible for the death of our relatives?", "Citizens of Russia! Think about it! Each of you can be in our place!", "Enough lies and the hypocrisy of Kolesnikov!"

The protesters were detained and escorted to the Tverskoy police station, because they "mixed up" the place of the action (the picket was allowed in front of the entrance to the investigative department of the Prosecutor General's Office in Tekhnichesky lane).

“We had all the documents in order, but at the last moment the prefecture changed the address of the picket to Technical Lane, there is also one of the buildings of the Prosecutor General’s Office, but we didn’t know anything, no one warned us,” Ella Kesaeva explained.

After the misunderstanding was sorted out, the rally participants were released, none of them was brought to administrative responsibility.

In Krasnodar, the public organization "Presumption" was preparing a protest action against same-sex love. She had to go under the beat of a drum with the slogan "Be ashamed of being gay." Local nazbols, members of the "Eurasian Union of Youth", sovereigns from the banned party of Boris Mironov, as well as the Cossacks, expressed their readiness to support him. Representatives of the Orthodox Church, according to the organizers of the action, also promised to join the column. The city authorities banned both the rally and the procession the day before the event. However, on October 15, the protesters did come to the prearranged venue for the rally. The arriving police officers forbade them to unfurl banners and blocked the procession.

At the same time, the law enforcement officers apologized and said that they were in soul with the protesters. “We were sent here not to disperse the youth, but to prevent the homosexuals from provoking,” the police captain explained in a whisper.

Mikhail Zharkov, head of the public relations department of the Krasnodar administration, said that he personally did not intend to defend gays either, but he could not allow obscene slogans to be worn in the streets in the regional capital on a day off when families walk with children.

The youth movement "We" received refusals in October to hold two protest events.

A rally on Putin's birthday ("We" decided to congratulate the leader of the country as follows: "Vladimir Vladimirovich! "WE" congratulate you. You have been able to do a lot: get rid of the annoying opposition, enterprising businessmen, freedom of speech on television ... Now you can leave calmly. We wish you an orange mood") was banned due to the fact that the name and patronymic of one of the organizers in the application were rearranged.

The march planned for October 9, directed against the existing regime, was officially banned "for reasons of irony." During the procession, the participants had to uncover the banners "Long live the dictatorship!", "BACK IN USSR!" and with songs from the repertoire of the Soviet past, move backwards along Nikitsky Boulevard towards Pushkinskaya Square.

Vasyukov, deputy prefect of the Central Administrative District, remarked to this: “Since you have irony, then this is no longer politics, but a show. Applications for theatrical processions are submitted ten days in advance, not seven. I refuse.” The written refusal sounded no less eloquent: "Given that the action is ironic in nature and the real purpose of the action does not correspond to the specified one, to refuse permission."] (http://www.demos-center.ru/news/7082.html)