Russia Protests Tainted by ‘Shadow of Nationalism’

ria.ru ^ | January 19, 2011

[Tailgunner Joe]

Demonstrations against alleged electoral fraud in favor of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s party are being discredited by the involvement of ultra-nationalist groups, rights activists said on Thursday.

“The participation of far-right groups in democratic movements casts a dark shadow over their activities,” said anti-fascist activist Pavel Mitenko at a news conference.

Rallies against suspected vote fraud on behalf of Putin’s United Russia at the December 4 parliamentary polls have attracted a bewildering range of disparate opposition groups, including extreme-right movements whose members have been jailed for race-hate attacks.

Popular protest figurehead Alexei Navalny has made no secret of his nationalist views, which have in the past included calls for a clampdown on migrants from former Soviet Central Asian republics. In a recent interview with Russia's Esquire magazine, however, he said he was in favor of "assimilation."

Navalny, who first came to public attention as an anti-graft activist, has also proposed arming ethnic Russians to enable them to defend themselves from “cockroaches” – his description in a 2007 video address for the Narod nationalist movement for criminals from the country’s volatile North Caucasus.

But Navalny has consistently said his involvement in nationalist movements is an attempt to engage with the very real concerns of many ordinary Russians over mass labor migration from impoverished former Soviet republics such as Tajikistan. Tensions between ethnic Russians and youths from North Caucasus republics like Chechnya and Dagestan are another major source of friction.

“Neo-Nazi and nationalist movements are rising to the summit of civic society,” said rights activist Yaroslav Nikitenko – who recently served 10 days behind bars for taking part in an unauthorized rally. “This is connected mainly with Navalny, who is responsible for promoting them.”

Members of nationalist groups such as the Movement Against Illegal Migration (DPNI) and the outlawed Slavyansky Soyuz were prominent at the recent Moscow vote protests. The “For Free Elections” protest movement organizing committee also includes DPNI head Alexander Belov and nationalist leader Vladimir Tor. The presence of nationalists in the organizing committee is largely thanks to Navalny’s efforts, Nikitenko said.

“Navalny is a nationalist, just more moderate than some of the others,” Alexander Verkhovsky the head of the SOVA Center for Information and Analysis that monitors racist attacks in Russia told RIA Novosti. “But his right-wing views are shared by what I would say is a tiny percent of the people going to the protests.”

The news conference took place on the third anniversary of the murders of human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov and journalist Anastasia Baburova, who were shot dead in downtown Moscow in 2009. Two nationalists were jailed last year over their deaths, which made international headlines.

Rallies to mark the anniversary are planned for Thursday evening in over a dozen Russian cities, including Moscow and St. Petersburg.

“Markelov and Baburova were opposed by the dark forces of far-right and openly Neo-Nazi movements…and today the people on that dark side are attempting to enter to democratic, civic movements,” sociologist Alexander Bikbov told journalists at Thursday’s news conference.

But liberal political analyst Andrei Piont­kovsky poured scorn on calls to exclude nationalists from the vote fraud rallies, the next of which is due on February 4.

“I might not like what the nationalists say, but they have the right to attend protests,” he told RIA Novosti. “This is not a matter of cooperating politically with them, but rather uniting to achieve a common goal – fair elections.”

“If I start trying to limit, say, Navalny’s political activities, then tomorrow he might try to limit mine,” he went on. He also said that playing up the nationalist threat was “playing right into Putin’s hands.”

“The authorities have long used the threat of nationalism to scare people into accepting Putin’s rule,” he added. “Continuing down this path will merely ensure Putin’s reelection in March.”

[Tailgunner Joe]

This is a hit piece by the Russian state-run media trying to smear the patriotic anti-Putinist protestors just like the Obamedia smeared the Tea Party as like the "kkk without hoods."

[defendit]

Just started to get interested in the Russia situation.

Trying to find out if Aleksei Navalny is closer to Tea Party or to Occupy material. Perhaps they’re finding their way to one or the other side: big government or limited government and free enterprise.

For sure they are challenging the status quo in Russia and putins/party/kremlin domination and corruption which is a clever and coniving foe similar to the situation in the blue states, such as my own in California.

Also worth noting is this article over at gulagbound.

http://gulagbound.com/26541/the-russians-and-american-progressives-together-again/

“The Russia Today (RT) Moscow-funded propaganda channel, which is backing the murderous regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, aired a special program on Tuesday night on how progressives in the U.S. can “Take Back the American Dream” by defeating Republicans. The propaganda effort was broadcast throughout the United States and produced in collaboration with major liberal groups such as the Campaign for America’s Future, MoveOn.org and Demos, all of them Soros-funded.”

The rest of the article is a must see. Anyway, Hillary Clinton’s remarks seemed more sympathetic to protestors rather than to the Putin regime. But of course sympathetic Democratic statements about people usually tend to misdirect their audience about what is going on behind the scenes and the role they play in them.