On Putin's birthday, opposition activists protest, call for him to quit

REUTERS ^ | October 7, 2017 | Vladimir Soldatkin, Jack Stubbs

[McGruff]

Police detained more than 200 opposition activists on Saturday for taking part in a wave of anti-Kremlin protests across Russia in support of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, ahead of a presidential election in March, a monitoring group reported.

Under grey skies and intermittent rain, over two thousand people gathered in central Moscow’s Pushkin Square and chanted “Russia will be free” and “Russia without Putin” before walking towards the Kremlin and parliament.

Police briefly detained a few people, but did not charge anyone. It was a different story at rallies in other cities however, and the OVD-Info monitoring group, a non-profit organization, said at least 262 people had been detained in 27 towns.

[Trump20162020]

Were the "opposition activists" literal communists?

[SERKIT]

Inseating Putin in Russia is as hard as inseating Speaker Madigan in Ill-Annoy. Both run their respective Dumas.

[McGruff]

We call them Democrats.

[billakay]

I think in this case, the activists were followers of Alexei Navalny, who is the current western media darling for anti-Putin politics. The problem is that his politics are scary, and he is incredibly racist (like really racist, not like how they call everyone racist these days). He is into this “Russia for Russians” BS and has advocated shooting immigrants. Keep in mind that Russia’s illegal immigration problem has dwindled to almost nothing under Putin, and most of the immigrants he is taking about are citizens.

[nhwingut]

They don’t mess around. I watched a Netflix show on Russian Prisons. Not like the American prison systems, that’s for sure. Google Black Dolphin prison. Max security doesn’t aptly describe it.

[Impy]

I’d have voted for Prokhorov, who came in third with 8%.

But he was likely a planted, fake opponent.

Madigan does that too. Great comparison, SERKIT.