Russia Limits G8 Protesters' Activities

Russian activists against the G8 Sumit meeting, play guitar and violin in the tent camp organized for protesters in St. Petersburg, Friday, July 14, 2006. (AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev) (Sergey Ponomarev - AP)

ST. PETERSBURG, Russia -- Protesters demonstrating against this weekend's Group of Eight summit are barely visible, but not by choice. Authorities have limited their activities to a stadium in a hard-to-reach part of the city.

"At this stadium it's like we are in the zoo, fenced in with these bars," said Ivan Lokh, one of about 400 people who came Friday to the Russian Social Forum, the formal name of the protest gathering. "The authorities want to show there's no opposition in the country."

The gathering indeed gives an image of activists appearing inconsequential amid the vast bowl of a 50,000-seat stadium. But organizers said authorities were taking steps harsher than just image control.

More than 200 people were detained en route to the "counter-summit" or removed from planes and trains, and countless others harassed and intimidated by police, organizers said. Some have been sentenced to short jail terms on trumped-up charges, they said.

The German Foreign Ministry said two German university students who came to report on the protests had been sentenced to 10 days in jail.

"It is the first time in recent Russian history that we have seen such a massive, coordinated nation campaign of pressure against activists," said Stanislav Margelov, a lawyer working with the loose alliance of groups that organized the gathering.

The claims of repression underline Western concerns about Russia's democratic intentions under President Vladimir Putin, and G-8 leaders are expected to raise the issue at the summit, which runs Saturday through Monday.

Russian authorities denied unfair treatment of the protesters.

"In our view, all the conditions for expressing one's view, for conveying one's position to the media ... have been created" for them, said Vladimir Kozhin, the Kremlin's deputy chief organizer of the G-8 summit. He said complaints about detentions "are being looked into."

Kozhin also defended the stadium location as "practically the center of the city."

The stadium is at the far end of a vast park on one of St. Petersburg's islands, about two miles from the nearest public transport. And that subway station was to be closed during the summit for "ongoing work," signs posted Friday morning said. The signs were later removed.

Security was tight ahead of the summit.