WORLD : Police Club Moscow Protesters
Helmeted Soviet police wielding truncheons charged and clubbed demonstrators in Moscow tonight after a candlelight vigil in memory of Stalin’s victims. Scores of protesters were knocked to the ground, beaten and dragged into police buses.
About 1,000 Soviets converged at dusk on KGB headquarters in central Moscow to mark the unofficial “Day of the Political Prisoner” and mourn the millions wrongly imprisoned or killed under the dictator Josef Stalin.
Witnesses said the protest, which lasted about one hour, proceeded peacefully.
But then a splinter group of about 500 marched toward Pushkin Square, a favorite site for human rights activists to gather. They were attacked by police without warning.
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