On Sunday, about 20,000 protesters took part in a march in Moscow, protesting a new law supported by both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia's parliament, which bans Americans from adopting Russian children.
Opposition leader Sergei Udaltsov, (foreground) speaks during a protest rally in Moscow, Russia, Sunday. Thousands of people are gathered in central Moscow for a protest against Russia's new law banning Americans from adopting Russian children. They carry posters of President Vladimir Putin and members of Russia's parliament who overwhelmingly voted for the law last month.
Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP
EnlargeThousands of people marched through Moscow on Sunday to protest Russia's new law banning Americans from adopting Russian children, a far bigger number than expected in a sign that outrage over the ban has breathed some life into the dispirited anti-Kremlin opposition movement.
Skip to next paragraph' +
google_ads[0].line2 + '
' +
google_ads[0].line3 + '
Subscribe Today to the Monitor
Shouting "shame on the scum," protesters carried posters of President Vladimir Putin and members of Russia's parliament who overwhelmingly voted for the law last month. Up to 20,000 took part in the demonstration on a frigid, gray afternoon.
The adoption ban has stoked the anger of the same middle-class, urban professionals who swelled the protest ranks last winter, when more than 100,000 people turned out for rallies to demand free elections and an end to Putin's 12 years in power. Since Putin began a third presidential term in May, the protests have flagged as the opposition leaders have struggled to provide direction and capitalize on the broad discontent.
Opponents of the adoption ban argue it victimizes children to make a political point. Eager to take advantage of this anger, the anti-Kremlin opposition has played the ban as further evidence that Putin and his parliament have lost the moral right to rule Russia.
The Kremlin, however, has used the adoption controversy to further its efforts to discredit the opposition as unpatriotic and in the pay of the Americans.
Sunday's march may prove only a blip on what promises to be a long road for the protest movement, especially in the face of Kremlin efforts to stifle dissent. But it was a reunion of what has become known as Moscow's creative class, whose sarcastic wit was once again on display on Sunday.
"Parliament deputies to orphanages, Putin to an old people's home," read one poster. Another showed Putin with the words "For a Russia without Herod."
Putin's critics have likened him to King Herod, who ruled at the time of Jesus Christ's birth and who the Bible says ordered the massacre of Jewish children to avoid being supplanted by the newborn king of the Jews.
Russia's adoption ban was retaliation for a new U.S. law targeting Russians accused of human rights abuses. It also addresses long-brewing resentment in Russia over the 60,000 Russian children who have been adopted by Americans in the past two decades, 19 of whom have died.
Cases of Russian children dying or suffering abuse at the hands of their American adoptive parents have been widely publicized in Russia, and the law banning adoptions was called the Dima Yakovlev bill after a toddler who died in 2008 when he was left in a car for hours in broiling heat.
"Yes, there are cases when they are abused and killed, but they are rare," said Sergei Udaltsov, who heads a leftist opposition group. "Concrete measures should be taken (to punish those responsible), but our government decided to act differently and sacrifice children's fates for its political ambitions."
mardi gras 2012 the secret world of arrietty cee lo allen iverson jr smith chris anderson rondo suspended
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.