Two Protesters Arrested for Carrying a New Iron Curtain
By Galina Stolyarova
Staff Writer
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Alexander Belenky / The St. Petersburg Times
Police arresting one of two young Yabloko opposition party activists as he carries an iron sheet marked “The Iron Curtain Returns” in St. Petersburg on Thursday.
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Several dozen police on Thursday afternoon violently manhandled two liberal activists carrying a large sheet of rusty metal with the words “The Iron Curtain Returns” painted on it near the headquarters of the democratic party Yabloko. Grigory Pashukevich and Alexander Gudimov, both members of Yabloko’s youth wing, were detained before they had managed to walk fifty meters with the ironic iron banner as they left the party office at 46 Ulitsa Mayakovskogo. Tipped off that the pair would be in the street with the sign, the police had arrived early to observe the door of the building. Within seconds of the activists setting out, they were besieged by dozens of policemen coming from all directions. The police had apparently been hiding in nearby courtyards. The police asked no questions as they grabbed the men, pushed them into a police van, kicked and trampled the metal sheet with their boots, and drove away. The spectacle, witnessed by about 20 journalists who had also been invited to see the activists carry the “iron curtain” as a protest against diminishing openness in Russia, lasted just under ten minutes. The police refused to explain what laws the activists had violated but said carrying the metal sheet was “an unsanctioned outdoor action that must be immediately stopped.” Gudimov said the plan had been to carry the metal sheet from the Yabloko headquarters to the office of the local branch of Garry Kasparov’s United Civil Front on Vasilievsky Island, while also using the walk as a way to declare their political opinion. “It feels as if Russia has been taken back three decades in a time machine, so surreal our life has become,” Gudimov said before he set off on the walk. “The country is corrupt and ruled by double standards. The rich kids of the Russian elite are studying in the U.K. but with the St. Petersburg office of the British Council being forced to shut down, ordinary locals can no longer get the help of this organization; the European University, one of the most respected private universities, was closed.” A “new Iron Curtain,” Gudimov continued, separates ordinary Russians not only from Western media and Western education, it imposes a strict control over every aspect of people’s lives, limiting rights to access information and express opinions. Pashukevich said they chose this impromptu form of reaching out to fellow St. Petersburgers with their view on Kremlin politics, because reaching an agreement with City Hall on holding a demonstration or meeting of protest has become virtually impossible. “Even when we get permission the police crush the protests so we thought that walking through the city with a banner is the only suitable option,” he added. But Pashukevich seems to have underestimated police reaction to the idea. Yabloko activist Darya Makukhina looked on in disbelief and horror as the police threw her fellow activists into the van. “I am bewildered,” Makukhina said. “They haven’t done anything wrong! A friend of mine was badly beaten by the police at the last Dissenters’ March and nobody has been punished. The police in Russia are above the law and the constitution. They go about as they please and do not even pretend to obey the law.” Maxim Reznik, head of the St. Petersburg branch of Yabloko compared the detention with a special law enforcement operation against long-wanted repeat offenders. “This is absurd; such a staggering police presence against two harmless and innocent people is insane,” Reznik said. “This is what you get in Russia when you want to express a critical opinion, even if it comes in the form of merely carrying a banner. Dissent is now regarded — and treated — as a crime by Russian law enforcement agencies.” Yabloko activists were astounded by the vigor with which the officers attacked the improvised metal poster, calling the police behavior barbaric. Observers of the ferocious police reaction noted that leaving footsteps has been a signature style of the country’s police for many decades. In the Soviet era, underground artists were oppressed for ideological reasons, with the police breaking in to their studios, destroying their displays and leaving footprints on their canvasses. Dmitry Shagin, an artist with the underground group Mitki, still owns one of his early paintings with a large print of a policeman’s boot on it. On Monday, an opposition Dissenters’ March, organized by the anti-Kremlin political coalition the Other Russia, will take place in reaction to Sunday’s presidential election, widely seen as a coronation of Kremlin candidate Dmitry Medvedev without democratic merit. The demonstration will start at 5 p.m. outside the Oktyabrsky Concert Hall and end with a protest meeting in the Chershyshevsky Gardens. The route has been sanctioned by City Hall.
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