Anti-Putin Protesters Arrested

Scores of demonstrators were detained and some beaten yesterday in Russia as riot police broke up a protest over the Kremlin's lurch toward authoritarianism under President Vladimir Putin.

Nearly 200 activists were arrested in St Petersburg, where a crowd had gathered in Palace Square chanting "Russia without Putin". The detainees included former deputy prime minister Boris Nemtsov, a leader of the Union of Right Forces, an opposition party that will run in elections on December 2. He was later released.

The arrests followed a crackdown on a similar march organized by the Other Russia coalition in Moscow on Saturday, when opposition leader and former world chess champion Garry Kasparov was arrested and jailed for five days on charges of leading an unauthorized demonstration.

In St Petersburg riot police dragged protesters from the crowd, including members of the banned National Bolshevik party. Police said activists had moved into "a place of great historical and architectural significance" near the Hermitage and were "provoking disturbances".

A spokesman for the Other Russia coalition said the authorities had "shown their fear" of anger against the Kremlin.

Nemtsov said: "I was peacefully speaking to an intelligent elderly lady, discussing why prices and utility bills have risen so high under Putin. Then five minutes after the beginning of the conversation 15 hooligans in the uniform of the Omon [riot police] pounced on me."

Putin's supporters said that only a few thousand people attend protests while much larger numbers turn out to back the pro-Kremlin United Russia party.