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Russia’s presidential envoy arrived to the country’s Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad shaken by a large-scale anti-government protest rally last week, a Kremlin spokesman said on Tuesday.
Kaliningrad (RIA Novosti) — At least 6,000 demonstrators gathered on Saturday in Kaliningrad’s Central Square protesting against the increase of transportion tax, housing and communal amenities tariffs and demanding the dismissal of the local government.
Representatives of opposition parties, Communists, Liberal Democrats, and Patriots of Russia and a number of non-profit organizations reportedly took part in the rally, which lasted for about two hours.
Ilya Klebanov arrived in the city on Monday, the spokesman said. According to the Kommersant daily, Deputy Prosecutor General Alexander Gutsan accompanied the presidential envoy. Some representatives of the ruling United Russia party also reportedly arrived in the Baltic exclave to study the situation.
Kommersant said a number of local administration officials, members of the ruling United Russia party, face dismissals over the meeting, and were accused by the central authorities of underestimating the scale of the rally. Local parliament speaker Sergei Bulichev, a close ally of Kaliningrad region’s Governor Georgy Boos is among those who could be affected, the paper said.
“In Moscow, demonstrations are dispersed by riot police, we have not done this. Is this the governor’s fault?” a local government official was quoted by Kommersant as saying.
On Sunday, Moscow police detained some 100 human rights activists, who gathered for an unsanctioned rally in downtown Moscow, which involved some 200 protesters. The leader of the opposition movement The Other Russia, Eduard Limonov, former Russian deputy prime minister Boris Nemtsov and head of the Memorial human rights group Oleg Orlov were among the detained.
In a similar crackdown on protesters on Moscow’s Triumfalnaya Square just hours before New Year’s, Moscow police arrested about 50 people, including the 82-year-old head of the Moscow Helsinki group, Lyudmila Alexeyeva, prompting criticism from the U.S. and European human rights organizations.
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