Paul Goble
Staunton,
June 6 – Despite Moscow media claims that the truckers’ strike is over and
union leaders’ statements that their protest has shifted from the highways to the
courts, a police raid on a group of truckers still very much on strike in
Saratov indicates that the strike goes on and that the authorities are trying
to snuff it out by force.
Yesterday,
regional media reported but Moscow media did not that law enforcement organs in
the city of Engelsk in Saratov oblast had made an unsuccessful attempt to
disperse striking drivers from the encampment where they have been since the
start of the strike March 27 (vzsar.ru/news/2017/06/06/v-engelse-predprinyata-popytka-razgona-stachki-dalnoboischikov.html, 4vsar.ru/news/90468.html and saratov.versia.ru/protestuyushhie-dalnobojshhiki-zayavili-o-popytke-svernut-ix-lager).
The
police charged the drivers with engaging in an illegal meeting even though the
authorities had earlier given their permission for the truckers to assemble
where they were. The drivers said they were not discouraged and would continue
to press their demand for an end to the Plato fee system and for meetings with
people in power to discuss their grievances.
One
driver, Aleksey Kaldikhin, said the police behaved atrociously and that as far
as he and the other drivers are concerned, what happened was “a punitive
operation” of the purest kind. The authorities “conducted themselves” like “fascist
occupiers” (nversia.ru/news/view/id/107166).
Meanwhile,
in other strike news, police released three truckers they had detained last
weekend (echo.msk.ru/news/1993758-echo.html), and a new analysis of protests shows that regional
actions can be quite strong but that they have not been able to come together
to make themselves an all-Russian cause (http://iz.ru/602922/natalia-rozhkova/moskovskaia-renovatciia-ne-zainteresovala-regiony).
No comments:
Post a Comment