Protesters beaten

Riot police wielding batons beat, kicked and chased anti-Kremlin protesters through the heart of St Petersburg yesterday, a day after Russian authorities snuffed out a similar rally in Moscow. The use of force used by riot police and the detention of hundreds of activists have drawn criticism from the West.

Yesterday's violence began when about 500 demonstrators calling for the resignation of President Vladimir Putin moved towards a metro station after an officially permitted protest ended.

Police wearing crash helmets and armed with full-length metal shields and rubber truncheons moved into the crowd, a mixture of people from students to old women.

Police arrested some protesters, pushed others to the ground where they kicked and hit them with their batons and some chased individuals through the streets.

"Stop the beating," demonstrators shouted at the police.

"Fascists. How much did Putin pay you?"

The police herded about 150 protesters into police vans, and continued to hit some of them with batons inside. The city authorities had allowed the protesters to hold a meeting, but had banned the march.

Opponents of President Putin, acting under the umbrella organisation Other Russia, planned two rallies over the weekend. Authorities banned the main rally on Saturday in Moscow and detained several hundred protesters there, including former world chess champion Garry Kasparov.

Mr Kasparov said the recent heavy-handed policing showed the authorities contempt for democracy.

"The last two days show that Putin's regime doesn't pay any attention to legalities, it relies just upon brute force," he told CNN International.

Other Russia brings together Kremlin opponents from across the political spectrum, from liberals to communists. They say Mr Putin has trampled on democratic freedoms and they demand a free and fair presidential election in 2008.

But Other Russia has only marginal influence as the vast majority of Russians support Mr Putin, whose seven years in power have been marked by huge oil and commodity wealth and the return of national pride after the chaotic post-Soviet 1990s.

Yesterday's rally in St Petersburg attracted about 3,000 people. The mobile phone network had been blocked and police trucks mounted with water cannon were parked in side streets.

"Freedom!" the protesters shouted. "Putin is the enemy of the people." The leader of the left-wing National Bolshevik party, Eduard Limonov addressed the crowd: "Our demand is the resignation of the government and the president and free and fair elections this year and next."

Police later detained him at a St Petersburg apartment.

Earlier police detained dozens of protesters heading towards the rally, organisers said.

"Police detained me as soon as I left my house this morning," rally organiser Olga Kurnosova, leader of Kasparov's political party in St Petersburg, told Reuters by telephone from police custody.

Meanwhile Russians in a Siberian province voted for a new regional assembly yesterday in the midst of a growing political furore between the authorities and opponents of Russia's President Vladimir Putin.

The Krasnoyarsk regional assembly election is considered the final dry run before the Russian state Duma vote in December. Anti-Kremlin parties have complained of harassment and unfair treatment during regional elections last month.

The SPS - a liberal orientated party which has been officially registered - says the authorities added hundreds of bogus names to the electoral roll to favour pro-Putin parties.

Electoral officials counter that the SPS has broken vote rules by offering people cash bonuses if they bring in more voters, and they have opened a criminal investigation. The SPS denied these allegations.

Since Mr Putin won power in 2000 the liberal opposition SPS and Yabloko parties have lost status and parliament is now dominated by the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, which exit polls indicate will also win the Krasnoyarsk assembly election.