Garry Kasparov, chess champion, detained by Russian police at anti-Putin demonstration.

[originalpckelly]

"MOSCOW -- Police detained Garry Kasparov, the former world chess champion who now leads one of Russia's strongest opposition movements, and at least 100 other activists Saturday as they gathered for a forbidden anti-Kremlin demonstration in central Moscow.

About 200 Kasparov supporters later gathered outside the police station where he was being held, shouting "freedom for political prisoners." After about an hour, police waded into the crowd, beating some demonstrators with truncheons and kicking them, offering sarcastic good wishes the crowd was forced to disperse.

The demonstration, one in a series of so-called Dissenters' Marches, increased tension between opposition supporters who complain the Kremlin is cracking down on political dissent and authorities who vow to block any unauthorized demonstrations. A similar march planned for St. Petersburg on Sunday also has been banned.

Since the first such march in December in Moscow, Kasparov has emerged as one of President Vladimir Putin's most prominent critics."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/14/AR2007041400383.html?hpid=artslot

If you listen to the article it is very ominous and shows that Putin is becoming more of a dictator by the day.

And that's what hit me here, this same thing has happened repeated times in the United States of America in the past few years.

I'm also reminded that segregationists prohibited blacks from protesting by not issuing permits.

I think permits for protests are a very awful thing, the reasons given in their support are so "logical": traffic flow this, safety of the protesters that, blah, blah and blah.

The problem is that no one should be prohibited from protesting. No government should have that power.

The only thing that should be required of protesters is a heads up to the local traffic police to make plans, and there should even be an exemption for that if the protesters feel they are going to be targeted by the government.

That should be a standard law of all real democracies, because dissent is the most important thing in all democracies. I dare say a country is not a democracy if it does not present free dissent.

[originalpckelly]

1. And one last thing...

how frightening are those outfits? Looks like something out of a 1984-esque SciFi movie.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

3. How frightening are these outfits? Miami 2003

http://miami.indymedia.org/news/2006/08/5498.php

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. Those are straight out of Blake's 7 - British TV sci-fi c. 1978

Federation Guard

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/classic/blakes7/intro.shtml

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

6. They want to look as frightening as possible and disguised as they carry out

their brutality.

Welcome to the new Amerika.

[wtmusic]

2. Mistake to f*ck with Kasparov

Garry is a national and international hero, and Putin is just another garden-variety despot.

[Jack Rabbit]

4. More coverage

Please click here.