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Kasparov seized at Moscow protest, released - CNN.com
<http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/04/14/kasparov.protest/index.html>
POSTED: 8:24 p.m. EDT, April 14, 2007
Story Highlights
• NEW: Chess champion freed after brief detention at protest
• NEW: Kasparov's mother calls legal hearing "a shame"
• Protesters demonstrate against loss of rights under Putin
• Reports of those detained range from 170 to 600

MOSCOW, Russia (AP) -- Russian riot police beat and detained protesters as thousands defied an official ban and 
attempted to stage a rally Saturday against President Vladimir Putin's government, which opponents accuse of rolling 
back freedoms.

Authorities also have banned a similar march planned for Sunday in St. 
Petersburg.

A coalition of opposition groups organized the "Dissenters March" to protest the economic and social policies of Putin 
as well as a series of Kremlin actions that critics say has stripped Russians of many political rights.

Organizers said about 2,000 demonstrators turned out. (Watch Russian police 
drag protesters away Video)

Thousands of police officers massed to keep the demonstrators off landmark Pushkin Square in downtown Moscow, beating 
some and detaining many others, including Garry Kasparov, the former world chess champion who has emerged as the most 
prominent leader of the opposition alliance.

Police said 170 people had been detained, but a Kasparov aide, Marina Litvinovich, said as many as 600 were -- although 
about half were released quickly.

Kasparov, who witnesses said was seized as he tried to lead a small group of demonstrators through lines of police 
ringing the square, was freed late Saturday after he was fined $38 for participating in the rally.

"It is no longer a country ... where the government tries to pretend it is playing by the letter and spirit of the law," 
Kasparov said outside the court building, appearing unfazed by his detention.

"We now stand somewhere between Belarus and Zimbabwe," he said.