Russian Crackdown

A German government spokesman Thomas Steg said that the "excessive use of force" by Russian security officials had been a cause for concern. In particular, Steg said that action against members of the media had been "unacceptable" with the German Embassy in Moscow protesting about the detention of accredited journalists.

A total of 350 demonstrators, including a representative of Germany's public TV, were briefly arrested in the protests which took place in Moscow on Saturday and the nation's second biggest city, St. Petersburg on Sunday. Riot police beat and chased anti-Kremlin
protesters through the heart of the city.

The German government expects a "comprehensive statement" from the Russian side explaining the circumstances surrounding the protests and the arrests, Steg said.

"The excessive use of force that we saw over the weekend is worrying and assaults on the media ... are unacceptable," government spokesman Steg told reporters at a regular news conference. "The German government expects and demands a thorough clarification of the events in Moscow and St. Petersburg, particularly the actions which prevented journalists from doing their jobs."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was expected to raise the Russian police action with Putin at a Russian-European Union summit set for May 18 in the Russian city of Samara. Germany currently holds the EU presidency.

"An open, peaceful, dynamic civil society are cornerstones of democratic society," ministry spokesman Jens Plötner said. "These themes are, were and remain issues for discussion when we talk with the Russian side."

Respect for basic rights

Europe's top human rights watchdog Monday also condemned the recent police crackdown on opposition demonstrators and called on Moscow to respect fundamental rights.

"We condemn this disproportionate use of force," said Council of Europe President Rene Van der Linden, adding that freedom of expression and freedom of assembly constituted fundamental rights in democratic countries.

Russia joined the 46-member council in 1996. Last year, it held the rotating six-month chairmanship of Europe's top human rights body which is independent from the European Union.

A spokeswoman for the EU Commission said that "freedom of expression and freedom of assembly are very important values" to which Russia had signed up as a member of international organizations such as the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

The commission was "very concerned" about the violent police attacks in St Petersburg and Moscow, she told reporters.

The 27-member EU would raise the recent events when holding talks with Russian officials at the margins of an EU foreign ministers meeting next week in Luxembourg, the spokeswoman said.

Respect for freedom of expression and freedom of assembly "are very important in the pre-election phase in Russia," she added. The opposition accuses Russian President Vladimir Putin of increasingly restricting human rights ahead of parliamentary elections in December 2007 and the presidential election next March.

Nervous government

The crackdown suggests that the Kremlin is increasingly nervous about next year's presidential hand-over, critics of the Russian government said on Monday.

The Kremlin on Monday defended the police's tough action against weekend opposition rallies, saying they had to stop "ultra-radicals" from violating law and order.

"The participants of these rallies did not always stick to the parameters which were set for them when they were given permission (to hold the rallies). That was the reason for those measures that were taken by the police," Kremlin deputy spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Reuters.

For many in the liberal opposition, the clampdown betrayed a fear of the kind of popular uprising seen in Ukraine in 2004, which helped cement democratic values and became known as the Orange Revolution.

President Vladimir Putin is due to stand down at an election in March of next year, under a constitutional rule banning an individual from holding the post for more than two terms in a row.

In Kremlin political circles "they are terrified of the example of Ukraine," said analyst Yury Korgunyuk of the Indem think tank.

"For them the example of Belarus is far more attractive," he said, referring to the authoritarian neighboring regime of Alexander Lukashenko.