“Dissatisfaction is growing, and this is good news”: White Ribbon protesters held a rally in Moscow
A rally “against the isolation of the Internet,” which the Russian authorities are allegedly preparing, took place in Moscow on Sunday. The action was actively covered by the editors of the American Radio Liberty, the resources of the leader of the white ribbon activists Alexei Navalny and the fugitive oligarch Mikhail Khodarkovsky.
“15300 people came, which is 4500 more than at the Nemtsov March 2 weeks ago. Discontent is growing, and this is encouraging,” the organizers reported.
According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the action attracted only 6,5 thousand people.
It is interesting that the “fighters against censorship” themselves were engaged in weeding out the journalists they disliked who came to cover the action.
“The organizers of the rally for free Internet did not allow our film crews to attend the rally. They said that you belong to a channel that we do not support, so you have no place at our rally, we do not allow you there. What kind of freedom did you want? We don’t have any other freedom for you,” RT head Margarita Simonyan said in her blog.
In addition, an RTVi correspondent was not allowed into the rally.
The action turned into a brawl between the rally participants and opponents of the Maidan from the radical organization Serb. As a result, several people were detained by the police.
“A Serb destroyed the American flag at the rally “Against Internet Censorship”... We were out of touch, to say the least! The rally was announced specifically in support of the Internet, and the protesters carried provocative posters against the Russian President and the authorities... And then there’s the American flag! Moreover, the liberals carried it so proudly, as if it were their native flag! But they didn’t report it! ...Those who came to the rally and shouted something about censorship themselves are very much censoring and do not allow those who have a different opinion from them to attend the rally...
The organizers, like Cerberus, stood at the entrance near the frames and clearly controlled who was allowed in and who was not. And they simply did not allow those who have a different opinion from them,” Serb representative Gosha Tarasevich said in a statement.
He expressed bewilderment why other opponents of the liberals did not come to express their position.
“Where are the patriotic movements that stand for Putin, for Crimea, for Donbass? Where is Evgeniy Fedorov’s NOD, where is Anti-Maidan? Where?" - Tarasevich is outraged.
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