ST. PETERSBURG — Police seized pamphlets criticizing Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on the eve of a high-profile business forum showcasing Russia, opposition leaders said.
St. Petersburg police confiscated 100,000 copies of a new report on Putin's decade in power co-authored by Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime minister, said Olga Kurnosova, head of the local branch of the opposition United Civil Front.
Kurnosova and Nemtsov contended that police were trying to keep the 32-page report from the public and visitors at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, which started Thursday.
"The police had the task of preventing the distribution of the report during the forum among its participants and citizens," Kurnosova said.
St. Petersburg police declined to comment.
Police held the driver of the vehicle that was delivering the pamphlets for several hours, Kurnosova said.
She said police told her that they had sent the pamphlet to be checked for evidence of extremism — a tactic that opposition politicians say authorities sometimes use to stifle criticism — and that the check would take two or three days.
Nemtsov has co-written several reports highlighting corruption and other problems that he contends have gotten worse since Putin was elected president in 2000.
The conclusion of the new report — titled "Putin. Results" — says, among other things, that during Putin's decade in power, "corruption reached a catastrophic scale" and the gap between rich and poor has widened.
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