Dissenters’ March

   The “Dissenters’ March” (Marsh nesoglasnykh) refers to a series of political protests that occurred during 2007 in the run-up to the 2008 presidential election that put Dmitry Medvyedev into office. The marches occurred in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Nizhny Novgorod, and other cities, ranging from several hundred protestors to thousands, depending on the venue. The protests brought together extreme right-wing organizations, like Eduard Limonov’s National Bolshevik Party, with liberal organizations, such as the United Civil Front headed by Garry Kasparov. The Other Russia, an umbrella organization of critics of the Putin administration, organized the marches. Russian media took a critical stance against the display of civic action, and police used harsh measures to control and then disperse the crowds. In each case, the organizers were denied permits to march, thus allowing the security forces to treat the activists as criminals; Kasparov was arrested during the 24 November 2007 march in Moscow and was jailed for five days.