McHenry Times

Illinois' 6th Congressional District representative says the peaceful anti-government corruption demonstrations in Moscow Sunday are encouraging, but a candidate running for Congress says the Trump administration is poorly handling Russia.

"I’m encouraged by reports of peaceful demonstrations across Russia against the corrupt, autocratic regime in Moscow," Rep. Peter Roskam (R-IL) said in a statement in which he also took aim at the Russian president. "Vladimir Putin has made a mockery of human rights and democracy both at home and abroad. We must support the Russian people, as well as our allies in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, in their struggle against Putin’s authoritarianism and expansionism."

In March, Roskam, chairman of the House Democracy Partnership, and Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) introduced a resolution condemning Russian interference in European elections.

Roskam's statement came after hundreds of peaceful protesters, including prominent Kremlin opposition figure and critic Alexey Navalny, were arrested during otherwise peaceful but unauthorized protests in Moscow. Russia's state-run Tass news service reported that 8,000 turned out to protest corruption in government in Moscow alone. Meanwhile, similar protests were reported in about 100 cities across that nation, according to organizers who participated in the Moscow protest.

The demonstrations followed on the heels of the slaying of Denis Voronenkov, a former Russian lawmaker and open critic of Putin and that nation's government, who was shot dead outside a hotel in Kiev, capital of the Ukraine.

The U.S. State Department strongly condemned the detention of hundreds of peaceful protesters throughout Russia.

"Detaining peaceful protesters, human rights observers, and journalists is an affront to core democratic values," the statement said. "We were troubled to hear of the arrest of opposition figure Alexei Navalny upon arrival at the demonstration, as well as the police raids on the anti-corruption organization he heads."

The department statement also called for the immediate release of the peaceful protesters and promised the U.S. will monitor the situation.

"The Russian people, like people everywhere, deserve a government that supports an open marketplace of ideas, transparent and accountable governance, equal treatment under the law, and the ability to exercise their rights without fear of retribution,” the statement said.