Tens of thousands of people on Sunday marched through central Moscow to honor the memory of Boris Nemtsov, the recently gunned down Russian opposition leader, and to express their outrage at the Kremlin, which they blame for sowing the hatred that could have led to the crime.
"That some swine have come to this is the fault of the authorities. In recent years, they have favored intolerance and hostility in Russian society," said Mikhail Kasyanov, one of the liberal opposition closest to Nemtsov, in response to a question posed by Efe.
At the head of the huge march, the former prime minister who up until the tragic assassination shared with Nemtsov the presidency of the Republican Party of Russia, accused the Kremlin of instigating hatred by dubbing those who oppose its policy "traitors to the fatherland."
"For the defenders of a democratic future for this country to call us a 'fifth column' or 'traitors to the nation,' even at the highest levels, even fromthe mouth of (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, is what pushes the crazies to commit these acts," Kasyanov said.
A sea of Russian flags bearing ribbons on them flowed from the site where the march began to the bridge over the Moscow River where Nemtsov was shot four times in the back around midnight on Friday, just a short distance from Red Square and the Kremlin.
Upon approaching the scene of the crime, people chanted in low voices "Russia without Putin" and "No to the war," alluding to the complaints that Nemtsov recently had made about the participation of Russian troops in the conflict in Ukraine.
In other Russian cities, similar acts were held to honor the memory of the opposition politician, a key member of the group of liberal reformers who came to power after the fall of the Soviet Union and the vice premier during two governments of that era headed by Boris Yeltsin.
The march in the Russian capital concluded with the arrests of more than 50 people for disturbing the public order, including Ukrainian lawmaker Alexandr Goncharenko, 34, a member of the parliamentary bloc headed by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. EFE
aep/bp
Source: Top Stories - Google News - http://ift.tt/1wFL1cy
0 comments:
Post a Comment