About 20 people gather at Russian embassy in Yerevan

December 10, 2011 - 12:40 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - About 20 people gathered at the Russian embassy in Yerevan on Saturday, December 10, to show solidarity with Russians who are protesting the results of the December 4 parliamentary election.

Asked by a PanARMENIAN.Net reporter why Armenian opposition leaders did not join the protest action, activist Samvel Karabekyan said “he expresses his own opinion while the stand of the Armenian opposition is a political issue which is bound to thorough investigation into election fraud allegations.”

Head of the Vanadzor office of Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly Artur Sakunts is also among the protesters.

Meanwhile, hundreds of people have gathered in different cities across Russia on Saturday to protest against alleged electoral fraud in favor of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party. Some 1,000 people rallied in the Urals city of Barnaul, about 200 at the central square in Chita and several hundreds of people in Krasnoyarsk, Russia’s Siberia, and more than 50 people came to an unsanctioned rally in Russia's Far East city of Khabarovsk.

Some 30,000 people intend to take part in an authorized rally in Moscow, which is expected to become the largest public protest in Russia in almost a decade.