Riot police break up Russia auto protest
5 days ago
VLADIVOSTOK, Russia (AFP) — Police on Sunday violently broke up a protest in Russia's Far East against higher tariffs on used imported cars against the backdrop of a worsening economy.
Riot police flown in from Moscow detained around 200 people -- including several reporters -- as up to 1,000 demonstrators protested for a second day running in the Pacific port city of Vladivostok, an AFP reporter at the scene said.
Some 200 protesters rallied in Moscow on Sunday in support of motorists in Vladivostok.
Behind the protest was a government move earlier this month to increase tariffs on used cars from abroad, notably from nearby Japan, to shield Russian automakers from the worst of the global economic crisis.
"Why did the Moscow OMON beat up peaceful Vladivostokers?" a protestor named Roman told AFP, referring to the riot police by its Russian acronym.
"They cruelly beat, five to eight people against one. They threw people on the pavement and kicked them, including those who simply walked by and had nothing to do with the protest," he said.
The protest in Vladivostok's central square was peaceful, he said, adding: "People even danced around the New Year's tree."
Russian and Japanese television crews were among the journalists arrested, Russian media said.
Police confirmed the arrests but would not be drawn on the number, the Interfax news agency reported.
The protests in Vladivostok follow demonstrations in and around the Pacific port city last weekend in which some of the 6,000 participants called for the removal of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
Protests in the Russian Far East could escalate into wider social unrest across the country -- a danger not lost on the Kremlin as the economy takes a turn for the worse.
A Levada Centre poll released Thursday indicated that the current level of "growing pessimism and uncertainty" matches that in the early autumn of 1998 when the Kremlin defaulted on its debt and the economy plunged into crisis.
Putin confirmed Friday the government would not cancel its decision on tariffs, saying it would rather pay to ship Russian-assembled cars to the Far East than see its residents buy Japanese-made models.
The protests have been roundly dismissed by Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, a close ally of the former president. "Some kind of swindlers are provoking this," he said, quoted in the Kommersant newspaper.
Around 200,000 people in the Vladivostok region make a living by importing and servicing imported cars. By contrast, 1.5 million Russians are employed in the domestic auto industry.
Reporters from Japan's NHK television, Russian newspaper Izvestia and ITAR-TASS news agency were detained during Sunday's protests. Later released, they said they had been beaten and had lost equipment.
"They beat us all, those who resisted and those who did not," ITAR-TASS photographer Vladimir Sayapin told AFP. "In the buses, the floor was sprinkled with blood."
"When the event started, police gathered all reporters in one place, telling us to stay there and work from there. When police moved in, they surrounded us all at once and pushed us to the ground," another reporter, Gennady Shishkin, said.
Riot police from another Far East city, Khabarovsk, were also used against the protesters in Vladivostok, while local riot police were sent away to Khabarovsk, police said.
The rally was organized via Internet, mobile phone text messages and word-of-mouth.
Smaller protests against the higher tariffs for the second-hand imported cars were held in other cities across Russia Sunday.
In central Moscow, some 200 protesters held a rally and many said the government decision would wreak havoc in Vladivostok and other cities in the Far East.
"I used to live there and travel there regularly," said protester Sergei Glebov, 47.
"There is a total breakdown there. All the infrastructure has been destroyed, the only thing that feeds them is car business. Everything will go belly under without cars."
Another protester, Timur Safarov, said the government was taking away people's basic freedoms by telling them to buy locally-made cars.
"First, we have been deprived of our right to elect, now they are taking away our right to choose cars," said Safarov.
Micro Sez: We need more of these people, not less.
