Police beat, detain Russian protesters

Police rounded up scores of people demonstrating against Russian President Vladimir V. Putin here Sunday, dragging them toward buses and beating some who tried to escape.

Hundreds of police officers armed with shields, body armor and truncheons bore down on demonstrators chanting, “Russia without Putin!”

Among those detained were several contenders in Dec. 2 parliamentary elections. They included Boris Nemtsov and Nikita Belykh, leaders of the Union of Right Forces party, who were later released.

Police said they detained several dozen people. But Alexander Shurshev of the Yabloko party, who also was among the detainees, said about 200 activists were rounded up in different parts of the city.

Some were held at police stations while others were driven to the city’s outskirts and released, he said.

Nemtsov, a likely contender in the March presidential election, said, “So many police proves they are afraid of us.”

Next week’s parliamentary vote has turned into a plebiscite on whether Putin should retain power when he steps down as president next year after two consecutive terms.

It is unclear what formal title he might hold, but he heads the ticket of the dominant United Russia party in the Dec. 2 vote and has suggested that he could become prime minister.

Police moved in when several young men unfurled signs for the banned National Bolshevik Party as about 100 activists from another party headed to the protest holding white flowers.

Yevgenia Dillendorf, a spokeswoman for the Yabloko party, said the young men with the signs appeared to be provocateurs sent to justify the crackdown.

Russia’s national television stations -- all under state control -- did not cover the demonstrations.

The president’s opponents accuse the Kremlin chief of cracking down on the freedoms won after the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union and of creating what they say is an unstable political system dependent on Putin alone.

Kremlin officials say the opposition marches are aimed at attracting attention in the West and that the activists are a mixed bag of marginal politicians with little public support.

On Saturday, police detained dozens of anti-government demonstrators in Moscow, including former chess champion Garry Kasparov, who was sentenced to five days in prison in a hasty trial.