Police Escort Dissidents in Moscow March
About 80 Armenians, Crimean Tatars and members of a newly formed Soviet opposition group shouted slogans and waved banners as they marched down one of Moscow’s main streets Sunday under police escort.
The demonstrators first gathered in Pushkin Square near the center of Moscow with placards reading “Down With Stalinism,” “Down With Privilege,” “Free Political Prisoners,” “We Want a Multi-Party System” and other slogans.
Announcing their intention to march to Red Square, the protesters formed an orderly column and, shouting out their demands, headed down Gorky Street toward the Kremlin with an escort of about six police officers.
Orderly March
About 50 police officers used megaphones to keep the marchers in order and out of the way of traffic but otherwise did not interfere until the demonstration reached Soviet Square, some 300 yards from the Kremlin walls.
At Soviet Square, the headquarters of city government, the police stopped the marchers from going farther but allowed them to hold a meeting under the statue of Yuri Dolgoruky, the founder of medieval Moscow.
“This protest shows how our political freedoms are widening. Today we are making history,” declared Yuri S. Skubko, a member of the Democratic Union, a fledgling opposition group.
Other speakers included Crimean Tatars demanding the return of their Black Sea homeland from which they were deported by Josef Stalin in 1944 and Armenians protesting over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan.
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