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"I can't predict whether I'll leave here freely or in handcuffs," Yashin told reporters before entering the Investigative Committee headquarters for the interrogation. "The government is doing everything possible so that I don't end up there (at the protest)." The top Twitter hashtag in Russia on Monday was "Welcome to the Year `37," a reference to the height of the purges under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. Tuesday's protest has city approval, but any shift from the agreed upon location and timeframe could give police a pretext for a crackdown. Udaltsov urged protesters to march across town after the rally to the Investigative Committee's headquarters to demand the release of political prisoners
-- an action that would likely trigger a harsh police response. However, opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, speaking after him, said the demonstrators should act within the law. "We must act in a responsible way, peacefully and calmly," he said. Sergei Parkhomenko, a leading journalist who helped organize Tuesday's protest, said the authorities would like to see unrest to back their criticism of the opposition. "They would be happy to stage some kind of provocation to prove that the people are just a herd of animals and the animals are always out of control," he said. A big opposition rally a day before Putin's inauguration in May ended in fierce clashes between police and protesters, and some opposition activists said the violence was provoked by pro-Kremlin thugs. The raids of the opposition leaders' homes and their questioning were connected to that May 6 protest.
[Associated Press; By LYNN BERRY and LAURA MILLS]
Andrey Bulay in Moscow contributed to this report.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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