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posted ago by CrazyRussian ago by CrazyRussian +27 / -16

In constitution of Russian Federation article 31 guarantees a right to assemble peacefully.

This is the real story, of how this right was taken away. Hope this will give some clue to what happens in US.

This was 2002, the second year of Putin presidency. There was a soccer game beetween Russian team and Japaneese team on July 9. We loose. Nothing serious, even most zealous soccer fans had no illusions about the quality of national team. So, as usual they rallied through the center of Moscow, chanting and making some chaos. There was a very strange thing before and during game - strong drinks in glass was sold freely to the fans, that never happened before, and never happened after. However, this did not lead to some violent actions. Mob even stop some drunk members from violence to passers. There was some scuffles between fans, but no any harm was done to the surroundings. Until the mob reached Manezhnaya square. There was a giant videowall where some advertising was shown. And just after the mob assembled on square, there began to appear an advertisement with a scene from Big Lebowsky movie, with a man smashing a car with a baseball bat. And even that did not lead to any violence. Only when police began to push the mob out of square, the bottles and rocks began to fly. After that ignition, police intentionally routed the angry mob to streets with shops where looting and fire began. The police suddenly hide in Moscow parliament building leaving streets to angry mob. Even after that the destruction was not fatal. Broken storefronts and only few burned cars. Police made only 9 gunshots to stop the riot. 2 fatalities and 79 wounded.

Immidiately after that, MSM began to forcefully push the agenda about how harmful are non-approved gatherings along with Parliament quickly prepared and approved the law prohibiting any free gatherings without government approvement. Putin signed the law immidiately. This was the fastest law pass ever. Yes, this direclty contradicts constitution, but all suits in constitution court against that law was just declined without comments.

Now we have a constitutional right to assemble peacefully, but ... only after approvement from authorities. Guess, would they approve something they don't like?

Protesters in Capitol make me recall that story.

And so it goes.