Authorities urge Russians to skip anti-Putin protest

A police officer braves the cold (-17 C) as he detains a demonstrator wearing a carnival costume of death who tried to take part in an unauthorized stage protest just outside the Interior Ministry headquarters in Moscow, yesterday

Russian authorities sought yesterday to deter activists from turning up at a rally against Vladimir Putin's rule, with the church calling on them to pray instead and the chief doctor urging them to stay home due to cold weather.
Tens of thousands are expected Saturday to march through Moscow to a square just over the Moscow river from the Kremlin to protest Putin's grip on Russia exactly one month before he stands in presidential polls on March 4.
After much haggling the Moscow city hall has allowed opposition activists to go ahead with the march and subsequent rally, the nascent protest movement's third major protest since fraud-tainted December parliamentary elections.
The head of Russia's Orthodox Church, which has been watching opposition calls to take to the streets to demand fair elections with growing unease, called on the faithful to eschew rowdy demonstrations for a peaceful prayer.
"Orthodox Christians don't know how to take to the streets," Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill said in an address to Russians.
"These people do not turn up at demonstrations, their voices cannot be heard, they pray in the quiet of monasteries, cells, and homes," he said on Wednesday.
"But they are taking to heart what is happening today to our people, drawing in their mind clear historic parallels with the turpitude and forgetfulness of pre-revolutionary years, with disorder, chaos and the destruction of the country in the 1990s."
The country's chief doctor, who is notorious in Russia for frequently intervening in political disputes, also called on activists to stay home on Saturday due to the current bout of cold weather.
"The forecast for Saturday is extremely unfavourable with temperatures of minus 18 degrees Celsius predicted. This is a very low temperature for Moscow," Russia's chief sanitary doctor Gennady Onishchenko said.
"It's better to refrain from [taking to the streets] and find another form of participation in building a happier state," Onishchenko was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.
Around 26,700 people have said they will attend the Saturday protest, according to its organisers' page on Facebook.
Putin initially derided the protesters saying they were in the pay of the US State Department. On Wednesday he said he was ready to take on a possible challenger in a second round run-off.
Since he announced in September his plan to seek a third Kremlin term in a job swap with incumbent President Dmitry Medvedev his approval ratings have dropped to the extent that he may not poll 50 percent in the first round.
Activists from the opposition movement Solidarnost (Solidarity) earlier this week briefly put up a huge banner on a building opposite the Kremlin that said "Putin – leave" and showed his face crossed out.
Activists say they are facing increasing pressure from the authorities, and some have already got the sack.