RUSSIA: Russian opposition leader and former chess champion Garry Kasparov said at least 20 of his activists had been arrested around Russia as they travelled to protest ahead of the G8 summit in St Petersburg this weekend .
"The number is growing by the hour," he said. Supporters had been refused permission to get on flights and were dragged off trains and buses. His complaint comes with opposition supporters in St Petersburg also criticising a crackdown on dissent by security services worried that protests will interrupt the summit.
Police are reported to have swooped on dozens of opposition activists demanding to know if they are involved in protests to coincide with the summit.
In one case, they arrived at the home of activist Vladimir Soloveichik, but finding him out, insisted on quizzing his 67-year-old invalid mother about whether she planned to take to the barricades. She told them she was an invalid and that walking was painful, let alone marching.
The opposition, which plans protests both against globalism and the rule of Vladimir Putin for this Friday, says the police action goes way beyond normal precautions to root out terrorists.
Whole sections of the city will be closed off, and any protests will take place miles from the G8 meeting and the TV cameras. "The police are trying to put all life in the city to a standstill during the summit," said Ruslan Linkov, leader of the Democratic Russia organisation in St Petersburg.
Meanwhile, Mr Kasparov accused the authorities of resorting to small-minded tactics to frustrate organisation of his "alternative summit" held in Moscow to complain about a lack of democracy. He said that on the orders of the authorities, the hotel where the two-day summit opened yesterday in Moscow would rent the conference only a tiny room.
An ex-premier, a former Kremlin aide, Soviet-era dissidents and activists from across Russia's fractured opposition teamed up at the opposition congress. Diplomats from G8 members Britain, Canada and the US looked on, despite comments by a Kremlin adviser that their participation would be an "unfriendly gesture".
Kremlin-backed youth groups Nashi and the Young Guard picketed the meeting, saying former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov and other participants wanted to return Russia to the chaos of the 1990s. State TV channels, meanwhile, ignored the meeting despite the high profile of some of its participants.