Soviets Detain 16 in Afghan Protests
Police in Moscow and Leningrad on Saturday reportedly detained 16 people protesting Soviet military involvement in Afghanistan--on the eve of the eighth anniversary of the Kremlin’s invasion.
Eight people were reported detained in Moscow, most of them after having been roughed up and dragged away by members of a police contingent that outnumbered demonstrators by more than 10 to 1. One demonstrator was said to have been hospitalized after a severe beating.
An estimated 115,000 Soviettroops remain in Afghanistan to help that country’s Marxist government combat a Muslim insurgency.
Street protests against Soviet involvement in Afghanistan are rare. Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s campaign of glasnost, or openness, has not noticeably been applied by state-run news media to Kremlin policy in Afghanistan.
In Leningrad, eight people were detained as they unfurled banners reading “Bring Our Children Back Alive From Afghanistan” and “Withdraw Soviet Troops From Afghanistan,” a dissident said.
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