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Russian car lovers continue anti-tariff protests
AFP - 48 minutes ago
VLADIVOSTOK, Russia (AFP) - - Hundreds of car lovers rallied Saturday in Russia's Far Eastern city of Vladivostok in ongoing protests against the government's decision to raise tariffs on used foreign cars.
Up to 1,000 people converged on Vladivostok's central square, brandishing banners against tariffs and high fuel prices and with slogans like "Government to Resign" and "Putin, Fight Oligarchs, not People."
Unlike earlier protests, the rally lacked an official organiser, its address and demands being spread by Internet, telephone messages and word-of-mouth.
"We are fighting not because we want a new car, but because there is no work here except selling used cars. Thousands will go broke, and that is people between 40 and 60 years of age, they're too old to learn another job," one of the protesters, Nikolai, told AFP.
"The region is underdeveloped, people flee because there are no jobs -- and instead of creating jobs and enterprises, the government hands us charity-like loans to buy Russian cars," another protester, Galina, said.
"Cutting down this business, this infrastructure is to create a domino effect, everything will go down, and it will end up in crime and alcoholism," the chief of car-lovers' movement Freedom of Choice, Vyacheslav Lysakov, told AFP.
"Every other family is directly or indirectly involved in the car business, and it is their physical survival that is at stake," he added.
Police seized 22 protesters, citing violations of the law on demonstrating, the regional police's spokeswoman Irina Syrova was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.
Other protestors defended the right of Russian drivers to buy cars with Japanese-style right-hand steering wheels, which are popular in Vladivostok, a Pacific port city much closer to Tokyo than Moscow.
The protest followed Sunday's rally which had some 6,000 people demonstrating against the government's decision to temporarily raise tariffs in a bid to help Russian automakers, signed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin last week.
Mass civil actions in support of automobile owners' rights regularly draw thousands of supporters in Russia, while pro-democracy protests by the country's liberal opposition are typically much smaller.
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A man works on the assembly line at the Renault Avtoframos plant in Moscow, December 9. Hundreds of car lovers rallied Saturday in Russia's Far Eastern city of Vladivostok in ongoing protests against the government's decision to raise tariffs on used foreign cars.
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