Moscow (AFP)

The Kremlin, confronted for a month with the strongest protest movement of power in Russia in recent years, denied on Tuesday any "political crisis" and defended the firmness of the police, accused of violence on the demonstrators.

Every weekend since mid-July, thousands of people are mobilizing at the call of the opposition in Moscow to denounce the exclusion of independent candidates in the local elections of 8 September.

Some unauthorized demonstrations resulted in hundreds of arrests. Most opposition figures, including Alexei Navalny, were sentenced to short prison terms and a "mass disorder" investigation was launched, paving the way for sentences of several years of deprivation of liberty.

Reacting for the first time to this unprecedented movement since Vladimir Putin's return to the Kremlin in 2012, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he "disagrees with those who describe what is happening with + political crisis +".

"Protests are taking place in many countries of the world, in several European capitals," he said. "But we can not associate this with any crisis".

- "Justified" firmness -

Dmitry Peskov called for distinguishing "authorized (protest) actions" from those that could be described as "attempts to organize and train people in public disturbances".

"You know that both phenomena have taken place" recently in the Russian capital, Mr. Peskov recalled. "We consider utterly unacceptable the excessive use of force by the police, but we consider perfectly justified the firmness of the police forces aiming at putting an end to the public troubles".

The most recent, and most important, of the demonstrations organized to demand free elections gathered Saturday in Moscow up to 60,000 people. And more than 250 people were arrested at the end of the rally.

The images of a young woman violently hit in the stomach by a police officer, for no apparent reason, during this demonstration were indignant, to the point that the Interior Ministry announced Monday the opening of an investigation.

In front of the court that was to judge her Tuesday for breaking the rules surrounding the demonstrations, her lawyer said she had suffered a concussion and dismissed the charges against her.

The Kremlin pays attention to "all the materials on which we obviously see actions being investigated", as well as those where "disobedience and aggression against "order", assured Mr. Peskov. "But only the court has the right to make a judgment," he added.

The protest movement began in Moscow after the rejection, for dubious pretexts, of the candidacy of about sixty independents in the local elections of September 8, which are difficult for the candidates supporting the power in a context of discontent social.

Among the protesters arrested and sentenced to up to 30 days in prison are, in addition to the number one opponent of the Kremlin, Alexey Navalny, several opposition candidates who have not been allowed to stand for election. poll of 8 September in the Russian capital.

"Every candidate who has been rejected has the right to appeal to the courts," Peskov said on Tuesday. "We can not and must not be guided by emotions," he insisted.

© 2019 AFP