Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin won his country’s presidential elections this weekend amid accusations by some Russians and outside observers that the voting process suffered from tampering and fraud.
Russians protesting Putin’s win and the alleged voter fraud gathered in Moscow’s Pushkin square on Monday, chanting phrases like “Russia without Putin.” When riot police demanded the protesters disperse, some gathered near prominent opposition blogger Aleksei Navalny, according to The New York Times.
By the end of the night, police detained Navalny (a picture of whom is included below) and 150 others in Moscow. In St. Petersburg, another 300 were taken into custody.
Putin served two terms as president from 2000 until 2008, when he stepped down to become prime minister — but many observers speculated that he was still pulling at the strings of power during the presidency of Dimitri Medvedev. During that time, Russian lawmakers passed a constitutional amendment that changed the presidential term limit from two consecutive four-year terms to two eight-year non-consecutive terms, allowing Putin to run for president once more.
Putin officially won more than 60% of the vote, awarding him the presidency until 2018.
Russians caught in the thick of the anti-Putin rallies used Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to send out news and video of the protests to the rest of the country and the world. Mashable has collected some of the best examples of social media use during the anti-Putin rallies, which you can view below:
Thumbnail image courtesy of iStockphoto, EdStock
Source: Mashable
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