Official fired for not sending people to pro-Putin rally

Boston Star (IANS) Monday 6th February, 2012

The director of a training centre lost her job for refusing to ensure her employees' attendance at a rally in support of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

Yelena Travina, director of the Karavella centre in Moscow, was forced to write her resignation, stating that she had actually told her employees to attend the rally in Moscow's Poklonnaya Gora park Saturday, the Novaya Gazeta reported.

The centre had received an order to send eight teachers to the rally but Travina challenged it at a meeting with a local education authority.

After the incident, the centre was told not to send any people to the rally but teachers from other schools in Moscow's Zelenograd region were taken there.

Last week, there were numerous reports that state employees were being coerced into attending the pro-Putin rally. Internet activists have started putting such companies on a black list.

The liberal Yabloko party has asked prosecutors to investigate those reports after bloggers logded complaints from state employees, including postal workers and school teachers, that they were being threatened with fines and demotions if they refused to attend.

Bonuses and "late breakfasts" were offered in return for attendance.

Police said between 90,000 and to 160,000 attended the event in Putin's support, compared to 35,000 at an opposition rally, whose organisers estimated attendance at 100,000.

--IANS/RIA Novosti

pm