Russian police thwart anti-Kremlin protest

By Christian Lowe and James Kilner

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian police detained several hundred people, including chess champion Garry Kasparov, on Saturday as they snuffed out an attempt by opponents of President Vladimir Putin to protest near the Kremlin.

Activists had planned to gather at a city center square about one km (half a mile) from the Kremlin to protest at what they say is Putin's trampling of democratic freedoms and demand a fair vote to choose a new president in 2008.

Teams of riot police, acting on a ruling from the city authorities banning the protest, pounced on protesters as they appeared in small groups near the square and swiftly loaded them into buses, Reuters witnesses said.

Kasparov, a leader of the Other Russia opposition coalition that organized the protest, was taken to court in central Moscow and charged with public order offences. He was fined 1,000 rubles ($39) and released after 10 hours detention.

"Today the regime showed its true colors, its true face," said 44-year-old Kasparov, a world chess champion for over a decade. "I believe this was a great victory for the opposition because people got through and the march happened," he said.

Commenting on the police breaking up the rally, he said: "This is a different level. The Russian state has shown it no longer respects the world press, public opinion or even Russian law." He said: "Now it is a country somewhere between Belarus and Zimbabwe."

Lines of riot police had earlier linked arms and forced pedestrians off the streets into Moscow's subway system.

Groups of protesters, waving Russian flags and roses and shouting "Russia without Putin", were dispersed as they tried to make their way to another square a few kilometers away. A Reuters reporter saw several being led away to police vans.