Russian police detain chess champion Kasparov

MOSCOW: Russian chess champion and opposition activist Garry Kasparov has been detained by police in Moscow as he tried to attend a banned protest march, his aide said on Saturday.   

"We wanted to go into the subway but the police did not let us and he was detained," said Kasparov's spokeswoman Marina Litvinovich.   

He was seen inside a police van, waving and smiling to journalists clustered outside on the edge of Pushkin Square.

Kasparov heads the United Civil Front opposition organization, which aimed to hold a massive anti Kremlin protest march on Saturday in alliance with other opposition groups who come together under the rubric of Other Russia to protest.

Opposition forces make a wide array of complaints against the Kremlin on political and economic issues, claiming particularly that the Kremlin is suppressing democracy.

Thousands of police, many of them in helmets and wielding truncheons, were at the square, and scores of people were detained. Many of those detained went quietly, but some struggled and were forced into police vehicles by officers holding truncheons around the detainees' necks.

Another prominent opposition figure, former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, was blocked by police from entering Pushkin Square and several dozen of his supporters were detained.