Russian authorities sought Thursday to deter activists from turning up at a rally against Vladimir Putin’s rule, with the church calling on them to pray instead and the chief doctor urging them to stay home due to cold weather.
Tens of thousands are expected Saturday to march through Moscow to a square just over the Moscow river from the Kremlin to protest Putin’s grip on Russia, exactly one month before he stands in presidential polls on March 4.
After much haggling the Moscow city hall has allowed opposition activists to go ahead with the march and subsequent rally, the opposition movement’s third major protest since fraud-tainted December parliamentary elections.
The head of Russia’s Orthodox Church, which has been watching opposition calls to take to the streets to demand fair elections with growing unease, called on the faithful to eschew rowdy demonstrations for a peaceful prayer.
“Orthodox Christians don’t know how to take to the streets,” Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill said in an address to Russians.
“These people do not turn up at demonstrations, their voices cannot be heard, they pray in the quiet of monasteries, cells, and homes,” he said on Wednesday.
“But they are taking to heart what is happening today to our people, drawing in their mind clear historic parallels with the turpitude and forgetfulness of pre-revolutionary years, with disorder, chaos and the destruction of the country in the 1990s.”
The country’s chief doctor, who is notorious in Russia for frequently intervening in political disputes, also called on activists to stay home on Saturday due to the current bout of cold weather.
“The forecast for Saturday is extremely unfavourable with temperatures of minus 18 degrees Celsius predicted. This is a very low temperature for Moscow,” Russia’s chief sanitary doctor Gennady Onishchenko said.
“It’s better to refrain from (taking to the streets) and find another form of participation in building a happier state,” Onishchenko was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.
