RUSSIA:

MOSCOW POLICE ATTACK FILM SHOWING:

The following is from the English language section of Avtonom, a Russian anarchist news site. It has been edited for reasons of English grammar and spelling.

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Russia: Weary of the naughty anarchists the Moscow police attacks black panthers!

Today, the 4th of May, there was supposed to be a movie screening of "Panther" by Mario Van Peebles (1995), a dramatization of the Black Panther Party of the 1960's , and a discussion following in the Jerry Rubin club of Moscow in Leninskiy Prospekt 62.

---- However around 6 PM the premises of the club were raided by UBOP (Administration on the Fight against Organised Crime), FSB and police officers. 25 people were arrested and taken to the nearest police station. UBOP claimed that it had reacted to a hint that a screening of a banned movie and planning of riots were supposed to take place in the club.

---- What makes Moscow police so afraid of a movement from other side of the globe, repressed almost 40 years ago? Apparently it was more that the people who they supposed were to see the movie were who they were after. This "payback" of the police may be explained as revenge due for a month long streak of actions against police brutality in Moscow, a reaction to brutal torture of youth in the Sokolniki police station on the 4th of April(http://www.avtonom.org/index.php?nid=1697). Thus far anarchists have organised a mini-riot in Slavyanskiy Square on April 11th(http://www.avtonom.org/index.php?nid=1701), an illegal March on Tverskaya Street on the 18th of April and many actions all around Russia and the world (http://www.avtonom.org/index.php?nid=1713). On the first of May in Moscow the anarchist bloc was the biggest since the 1920's, and there was also an anti-police picnic in Sokolniki (report still to be translated into English).

So there is little surprise that the Moscow pigs are pissed. Already on the 29th of April Moscow police announced that it had finished its internal investigation on events in the Sokolniki police station on the4th of April; that police tortured no-one and all the activists spreading lies will be sued. And here we go - dare to watch a movie of Black Panthers, and you land in a cop shop.

While writing this, most of the arrested have been released, but some of them were photographed and their fingerprints taken. But in any case you may give a phone call to the cop shop of Gagarinsky area (+7 (495)137-39-14).

In case you do not speak Russian just shout "PANTHER POWER!".