Little space for protests in RussiaOSCOW -- Ilya Gushchin says the two and a half years he spent in prison for standing up to the Kremlin were a warning from the authorities for ordinary Russians. "For society it showed that the authorities were willing to do whatever was needed to stay in power." Russia is currently gearing up for parliamentary elections on Sept. 18 that pro-Kremlin parties look set to dominate, and that message seems to have registered. The protests petered out after riot police violently cleared a demonstration on the eve of Putin's inauguration for a third term as president in May 2012. Gushchin was detained briefly after trying to pull an officer off a protester, but he thought little of it and carried on with life.

Source: The China Post September 12, 2016 16:24 UTC