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Other Russia warns it may stop giving authorities advance notice of protests
Interfax

Moscow, 3 December: The Other Russia opposition coalition believes that the authorities have no right to ban the procession known as the Dissenters' March in Moscow on 14 December.

"If the city hall refuses to agree to the demo, and the rights of the marchers are violated again, the organizing committee of the Dissenters' March will not in future persevere with the unworkable practice of submitting notifications, and will instead directly invoke the Constitution of the Russian Federation, which proclaims that citizens have the right to the freedom of association," member of the Other Russia executive council Aleksandr Averin has said.

His statement, which was received by Interfax on Wednesday (3 December), says that in telephone conversations with the organizing committee of the Dissenters' March, city hall representatives refused to agree to the route of the procession, Triumfalnaya Ploshchad (square) - Tverskaya Ulitsa (street; Moscow's main thoroughfare) - Ploshchad Revolyutsii.

Averin said that, instead of a procession, the city hall suggested staging a demo on Naberezhnaya Tarasa Shevchenko (embankment), or confining the event to a rally in Bolotnaya Ploshchad.

For his part, United Civil Front leader and the Other Russia coalition co-chairman Garri Kasparov told Interfax that the Moscow city government had no legal grounds to refuse the procession.

"Let the mayor's office make a decision. The selectivity of the Moscow city authorities is mind-boggling. They let the CPFR (Communist Party of the Russian Federation) and numerous pro-Kremlin movements stage mass events. I would like to remind (them) that only those representing the authorities ever resorted to violence at Dissenters' Marches, while there were no incidents from our side," Kasparov said. (Passage omitted).