MOSCOW: Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Thursday tough police action was imperative to stem extremism, saying that “liberal” criticism of the government threatened stability.
“It’s necessary to harshly suppress displays of extremism from all quarters,” Putin said in an annual question-and-answer session following outbreaks of nationalist violence in Moscow. Police have established a major presence in the capital, seeking to avert a repeat of last week’s riots. More than 30 people were injured when nationalists clashed with police and attacked non-Slavic minorities on Saturday.
In his remarks, Putin took a stab at Russia’s liberal opposition, comparing their anti-government stance with the racist riots as an “inadmissible” disturbance of stability.
“Society, including liberal society, must understand that there must be order and one must support the government now in power in order to support the interests of the majority.”
Putin, 58, an ex-KGB agent, remains Russia’s most powerful and popular politician and is credited by many for restoring stability after the chaotic 1990s.
But he is also criticised for tightening the Kremlin’s grip on power and quashing even minor displays of public dissent such as peaceful rallies organised by liberal activists. In a typically barbed statement, Putin challenged opposition intellectuals to don helmets and disperse rioters themselves, if they saw fit to criticise the law enforcement efforts. “Our liberal intelligentsia will have to shave off their beards, put on helmets and go out themselves onto the square to fight the radicals,” he said.
Putin said this year that those who took to the streets in unsanctioned rallies deserved to be “clubbed”.
On Thursday, he offered a lukewarm assessment of Medvedev’s plans for sweeping police reform. “What matters is that changes are made to the way their work is organised and to the structure of the interior ministry. Of course, it is too early to say whether those changes will take place or not, but this is the sense of the president’s idea.”
