Protesters attack Russian town hall to save forest

2010-07-29
A band of 100 masked peo­ple staged a vio­lent envi­ron­men­tal protest in a qui­et Moscow sub­urb, hurl­ing Molo­tov cock­tails and fire­works at city hall while object­ing to plans for clear­ing a local for­est for high­way con­struc­tion, Russ­ian police said.

2010-07-29
A band of 100 masked peo­ple staged a vio­lent envi­ron­men­tal protest in a qui­et Moscow sub­urb, hurl­ing Molo­tov cock­tails and fire­works at city hall while object­ing to plans for clear­ing a local for­est for high­way con­struc­tion, Russ­ian police said.

The cen­turies-old oak for­est in Khim­ki has been a focus of con­tro­ver­sy for years, as author­i­ties plan to cut down much of the woods to make way for a major high­way along the increas­ing­ly jammed route from Moscow to Shereme­tye­vo Inter­na­tion­al Air­port. In 2008, a local jour­nal­ist who report­ed on the issue was bru­tal­ly beat­en and left crip­pled and brain-dam­aged.

Late Wednes­day about 90 uniden­ti­fied peo­ple attacked Khim­ki city hall, Moscow region­al police said.

Russ­ian tele­vi­sion broad­cast ama­teur video footage show­ing masked attack­ers throw­ing fire­works and bot­tles at the build­ing, on which they had spray-paint­ed “Save Russ­ian forests” and “No to Khim­ki for­est clear­ing.” Khim­ki offi­cials said the attack­ers also threw Molo­tov cock­tails.

City hall secu­ri­ty offi­cers stayed inside the build­ing, and called police after the assailants had left, Khim­ki police chief Vik­tor Tanasiy­chuk said.

“Nat­u­ral­ly, police squads did not find any­one at the scene when they arrived,” he said. Police said the attack­ers then left on a sub­ur­ban train to Moscow.

No one was arrest­ed at the scene, but police lat­er detained nine envi­ron­men­tal­ists who have lived in the for­est to stop log­gers from clear­ing the trees. The activists denied any involve­ment in Wednes­day’s attack, and a police spokesman con­firmed they were not sus­pect­ed in the attack. The spokesman said the activists instead are sus­pect­ed of dis­turb­ing pub­lic order and resist­ing police, but he did not elab­o­rate.

The head of the coun­try’s Union of Envi­ron­men­tal Non-Gov­ern­men­tal Orga­ni­za­tions, Andrey Morgu­ly­ov, accused police of detain­ing the activists to derail their plans to meet Thurs­day with the Russ­ian deputy nat­ur­al resources min­is­ter and to attend a ses­sion Fri­day of the Pub­lic Cham­ber on the Khim­ki for­est.

Envi­ron­men­tal pro­test­ers have become increas­ing­ly vocal in Rus­sia in the recent years.

Thou­sands of peo­ple took to Moscow’s streets after Prime Min­is­ter Vladimir Putin signed an order this year to reopen a paper mill on Lake Baikal, the world’s old­est and deep­est lake now believed to be under seri­ous threat from indus­tri­al pol­lu­tion and devel­op­ment. The lake holds an esti­mat­ed 1,500 unique species of plants and ani­mals.