June 12 demos in Moscow to go ahead despite new law - activist
MOSCOW. June 8 (Interfax) - Opposition groups will go ahead with a planned mass action in central Moscow on June 12 despite a law that massively raises fines for offenses against legislation on outdoor public events, State Duma deputy Gennady Gudkov said on Friday, the day President Vladimir Putin signed the much-opposed law into effect.
"By signing this draft law, the president demonstrated that the Russian authoritarian regime had smoothly evolved into a totalitarian regime," Gudkov, a member of a party called A Just Russia, told Interfax.
Gudkov confirmed that the Moscow city administration had given permission to the June 12 events.
"We've had our application satisfied," he said. The application put the projected turnout at 50,000. The participants "will gather behind the Pushkinsky Cinema on Strastnoi Boulevard, from where they will move along the boulevards toward Sakharov Avenue, where there will be a protest rally from 3 to 6 p.m.," Gudkov said.
