Russian riot police clash with vote protesters

By Chris Baldwin

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian riot police clashed on Monday with opposition protesters who tried to hold an unauthorised rally in Moscow against the election of President Vladimir Putin's protege, Dmitry Medvedev.

More than 300 riot police, sometimes using batons, detained scores of activists and dragged protesters to police buses, Reuters reporters at the scene said.

Some of the protesters lit flares spreading scarlet smoke across the square in central Moscow, screaming "your election is a farce" and "Fascists! Fascists!"

"It is my duty to come down here and express my opposition after these pre-planned and falsified elections," Yelizaveta, a protester in her 50s, told Reuters as riot police arrested people around her. "Now they are dragging us away one by one."

The leaders of Russia's small and splintered liberal opposition have called a series of rallies to protest against the election of Medvedev, who official figures show won just over 70 percent of the vote.

Opposition leader Garry Kasparov, the former world chess champion who attended a separate rally in the northern city of St Petersburg, said 250 people had been detained in Moscow. A spokesman for Moscow's police declined to comment.

Western observers have criticized Sunday's election as not fully democratic but Putin said the vote was held in strict accordance with the constitution.

Independent opposition candidates were either barred from running or refused to take part in protest.