On November 24, former world chess champion Garry Kasparov and others were jailed for participating in a protest against Russian ballot access laws. Demonstrators are angry that Other Russia Party is barred from the ballot in the upcoming parliamentary elections. See this report. The new Russian ballot access law bars parties from the ballot unless they show that they have at least 50,000 members. The former law only required 10,000 members.
If only Americans would pay as much attention to their loss of voting rights as Russians do!
right on jerry
the article that BAN links to is good but does not mention/confirm the “50,000 vs 10,000” number of members as being a reason for barring an outside party. where’s THAT detail from?
That detail is from a New York Times story of October 14, 2007, titled, “With Tight Grip on Ballot, Putin is Forcing Foes Out of Parliament.”
This is just a further example of foreign interests
learning the WRONG lessons from American foreign aid!
Sounds like Nevada where they arrest grandmothers for legal petitioning.