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alp227

(31,960 posts)
Sat Dec 17, 2011, 07:07 PM Dec 2011

Vladimir Putin's persecution campaign targets protest couple

It is 10am and the tatty apartment blocks of southern Moscow are still shrouded in winter darkness as a slender young woman hurries towards the metro.

Black-haired, in jeans and a thin leather jacket, this is Anastasiya Udaltsova, one of the leaders of the civil protests that have swept across Russia, bringing tens of thousands of demonstrators on to the streets to express their disgust at rigged elections earlier this month.

Udaltsova, 33, is rushing to meet friends to drum up support for a new rally that will take place in Moscow on Saturday. She and the other organisers – including the hugely popular anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny and the veteran oppositionist Boris Nemtsov – are now exposed to the full hostile glare of the state.

Her husband, also a protest leader, is in jail and has embarked on a hunger strike in protest at the allegedly trumped-up charges, while Udaltsova is left alone to care for their two children.

full: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/17/putin-protest-organiser-hunger-strike

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