An anonymous reader writes: Police detained more than 800 people across Russia during protests against government plans to raise the national retirement age that have resulted in President Vladimir Putin’s approval ratings slumping to a four-year low.
Thousands of protesters took to the streets on Sunday in dozens of towns and cities after Alexei Navalny, the Kremlin critic, called for nationwide rallies against the pension reforms. Navalny was jailed for 30 days on 25 August on a separate protest-related charge in a move that he said was aimed at preventing him from leading the rallies on Sunday.
Navalny’s aides condemned Google after it removed his adverts from YouTube urging Russians to protest against the pension changes.
Russian officials sent a letter to Google last month asking it to block Navalny’s videos because it said they were illegal under the country’s election laws, which bar political campaigning 24 hours before elections.
Google confirmed it had pulled the videos. “We consider all justified appeals from state bodies. We also require advertisers to act in accordance with the local law and our advertising policies,” the company told the Guardian.
