Just as Mr Prodi flew in to Moscow to head a European Union Summit with the Government of the Russian Federation, riot police were violently breaking up a peaceful demonstration in Pushkin Square in the centre of Moscow.

5 protesters were badly injured as riot police truncheons lashed out indiscriminately and 25 were arrested and taken to the Police Station on 10th October Street where they are still being held.

The demonstrators were protesting at the recent labour laws which severely restrict workers’ rights, the racist passport laws in use in Moscow and the restrictions on freedom of travel imposed by the Shengen visa laws, at the wars in Chechnya and elsewhere in the world.

The meeting was organized by the Committee for a Workers’ International (known in Russia as Socialisticheskoe Soprotivleniye), the Russian section of Attak and the Kraniteli Raduga amongst others. The organizers had applied to the authorities for permission to hold the demonstration and after some negotiations this had been granted. Only at the last minute, after people had been organized to attend the demonstration were the organizers informed that the permission had been withdrawn “on instructions from above”.

Only last Autumn the European Union was forced to mildly criticize the Russian government over its brutal conduct of the Chechen war and the attacks on press freedom. At that time President Putin promised that the freedom of speech would be guaranteed in Russia. This unprovoked attack on peaceful demonstrators shows that he can not be trusted.

The Committee for a Workers’ International is organizing an international protest over this attack and is being supported by human rights organizations and other socialist and trade union organizations.

We are calling for all charges to be dropped against those arrested and for those responsible for the banning of this peaceful protest and the violence against it to be sacked and brought to court.

For further information: Phone Robert Jones 007 095 233 5815