Former Chess Champion Garry Kasparov Beaten And Jailed For Leading Anti-Putin Rally

AP:

Former chess champion Garry Kasparov was convicted of leading an opposition protest and sentenced to five days in jail by a Moscow court Saturday.

Kasparov and dozens of other demonstrators were detained hours earlier after riot police clashed with Kremlin opponents following a protest rally that drew several thousand people.

Read the whole story: AP

Comments

[avergejoe]

09:48 AM on 11/25/2007

i bet kaspy is working for berezovsky

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/08/AR2006120800446.html

Russian Billionaire's Bitter Feud With Putin A Plot Line in Poisoning

No ordinary billionaire, Boris Berezovsky is a onetime mathematician who travels around London with a posse of bodyguards.

As detectives pursue the murder case in Moscow and London, Berezovsky is saying he believes Putin is behind it, while Kremlin supporters see dark emigre conspiracies to smear Russia's reputation by engineering a spectacular murder.

On Friday, Russian news media reported that a third person in the case was suffering radiation illness -- Andrei Lugovoy, a Russian businessman who had met Litvinenko at a London hotel Nov. 1. Like many people in the investigation, Lugovoy had a connection to Berezovsky; he was formerly chief of security at a television network once controlled by the billionaire.

"They know each other personally. That adds to the animosity," said Alex Goldfarb, who runs the International Foundation for Civil Liberties, a New York-based organization funded by Berezovsky.

Goldfarb said Berezovsky helped Putin into office "on the assumption that he would continue the democratic reforms" of his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin. But Berezovsky has been horrified that "since Mr. Putin has come to power, there has been a systematic dismantling of democratic institutions," Goldfarb said. "His conflict with Putin has grown to Shakespearean proportions. . . . Mr. Putin hates him."

Berezovsky, trained as a mathematician, became rich during the chaotic birth pangs of Russian capitalism following the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. Under Yeltsin, the first president of Russia, the state began selling off assets in often dubious privatization deals that left a few people with gigantic piles of cash.

But according to Putin's supporters, Berezovsky unhappily discovered that the new president would not be his puppet.

[Purple Girl]

09:33 AM on 11/25/2007

As soon as the ability to voice opposition to anything is squelched, then those in control have proven their insincerity to resolve the issues in the best interest of their constitutients.
If you can not adequately justify your reasoning/position- your reasoning/position may need to be readjusted, or is just been proven to be invalid.
those who seek to silence opposing views, know their case is weak.
However if the logic is sound, the challenge will just strengthen your position or the 'tweek' will broaden your support
The bigger the Gag, the more restraints and condoning of violence, the Bigger the Lie.

[Kalima]

08:01 AM on 11/25/2007

Freedom on the march!
I would think that quite a few Russians are thinking
about the freedoms they gave up for economical
equality.
Did they even achieve anything in their efforts?
Ask the homeless,dying in the streets every winter
in the relentless, cold winters.Ask the pensioners
how they try to make ends meet,year after year.
Ask Putin and he will say everything is swell.
Ask the rich and they will smile.

[dgr]

07:34 AM on 11/25/2007

I actually went to some russian internet sites and read about the arrest of Kasparov. The Huffpo article is false and misleading.

Kasparov was not arrested for leading a protest. In, fact he and his bolsheviks (Look at the picture in the right upper corner of this page and you will see the protesters carrying the flag of the National Bolshevik Party) had a permit to hold a rally; they were however not allowed to march to the Duma and were told so ahead of time. Kasparov was obviously hoping to be arrested because as soon as the rally ended the radicals set out on their march to the Duma and the police blocked them. On their own web site they are now calling this "the march to the Duma" This is why they were arrested and why Kasparov will spend 5 days in jail for the illegal march.
Do you think that the the Bolshevik party, which espouses violent overthrow of the government, would be allowed to march to the halls of Congress in Washington...of course not. Kasparov was arrested for the same thing at the same rally last year.

For those who don't know, the National Bolsheviks Party in Russia is a racist, group that opposes captilism and the U.S. They believe that Russia should control all of Europe and Asia. They are akin to the Nazi Party and the KKK.

Why has Kasparov allied himself with the Bolsheviks?.... because his brand of democracy (the Yeltsin brand) has no adherents in Russia. He probably couldn't be elected dogcatcher. He had to align himself with the radicals because he has no other constituency

[watchingthings]

04:53 AM on 11/25/2007

Kasparov and his band of babboons and shysters want to bring back the Yeltsin years so they can rob the country blind. If by some miracle Kasparov were to gain power, millions would starve. I don't think there is much chance of this happening as the popularity of Putin and his party is in the high 70% range. Kasparov will go on stirring the pot till after election and then retire to a life of luxury in the west.

[dgr]

10:29 PM on 11/24/2007

Kasparov represents such a small group of people in Russia. I don't believe he would be allowed on the ballots in the U.S. either. To depict him as an opposition leader is absurd.
It just goes to show how far outside of reality America has arrived in its relationship with the Russian Federation. In addition Kasparov allies himself with the Bolshevik party....It is almost laughable.

[RedWhiteandBlueState]

10:26 PM on 11/24/2007

But wait a second... Didn't Dumbya look deep into his eyes and see his soul? Oh yeah. That was a mirror.

[CaliforniaBirdwatcher]

07:51 PM on 11/24/2007

Putin is a great man who cares for his people. So is Chavez a great man. Kasparov is a neocon greedhead; of the same ilk who already destroyed Russia twice, and who are currently ruining America......long live Putin & Chavez...my heroes....as for dumbya...a fool's fool.

[animalhamilton]

07:40 PM on 11/24/2007

this is a very important story.

we need to support Kasparov and all the Russian people in getting out from under Putin.

this story seems buried to me, even here in the HuffPost.

we worry about desert, cave dwellers and their 2,000 year-old ideas and 30 year-old machine guns more than an advanced nation - Russia - turning anti-democratic and increasingly hostile.

they have oil... does that make us care?

they have nukes... does that make us care?

[avergejoe]

07:28 PM on 11/24/2007

p - k3

[sculptor]

07:06 PM on 11/24/2007

Putin's clearly heading Russia back towards brutal authoritarianism and the sooner we in the west admit it the better. However this time, let's not let our government trick us into a repressive cold war.

[AnnArky]

06:57 PM on 11/24/2007

Hey, Garry, welcome to America . . . oops, same tactics different country.

[rcampbell]

05:59 PM on 11/24/2007

We have a much better idea now of what Bush saw when he looked into Putin's eyes and "...saw his soul..."(puke). He saw the same love for this kind of facsism, repression of citizens' rights and utter contempt for his country's laws as Bush.

[PretzelsOne]

05:59 PM on 11/24/2007

This cannot be! Our very perceptive President looked into Putin's eyes and saw a man he could trust. Explains a lot, don't it?

[IzaakSzerman]

05:48 PM on 11/24/2007

I have trouble accepting that 'President' Putin would be supporting this.

Didn't pResident Bush tell us that he had looked deeeeeeeeeeep into Putin's eyes all the way to his soul!