Putin likened to Stalin over trials of political protesters Indignation: Tamara Belousova, whose husband is accused of participating in a protest against the government, in Moscow. Photo: New York Times Yaroslav Belousov, a student, found himself at the centre of the mayhem last year when a rally against Vladimir Putin, then the prime minister, unexpectedly turned violent. As protesters grappled with riot police, investigators say, Mr Belousov "threw rocks and pieces of asphalt, broke through the cordon and attacked police officers." Some of his supporters, citing video evidence, say he threw only a lemon. On trial: Yaroslav Belousov, with his baby. Mr Belousov, 21, had no previous criminal record but he is one of a dozen participants in the May 6 demonstration whose trial opened in a Moscow court last week. What sets the case apart from a series of recent political prosecutions is that not one defendant was a high-profile opposition leader when they were arrested. Their prosecution seems intended as a sharp warning to other ordinary Russians about taking part in street protests. "When they arrest not the leaders ... but the ordinary people representing different social strata, of different ages and views, when these people are just being pulled out, this is, of course, intimidation," Mr Belousov's wife, Tamara, said. Mrs Belousova, 21, and like her husband a political science student, predicted the government's strategy would ultimately backfire. "It causes indignation," she said. Our child is two years old and he hasn't seen his father for a whole year. The cruelty is absolute and unjustified. Five of the defendants who are on trial were students; six were self-declared political activists of varying views. They range in age from 19 to 51, but most are in their 20s. The 10 men in the group have all been detained for about a year; the two women were released, one under house arrest. Garry Kasparov, the chess champion and long-time opposition figure, said at a news conference in Geneva last week that he would not return to Russia for fear of arrest related to his participation in the protests. "Putin is cracking down harder than ever and is showing he is willing to create a new generation of political prisoners unseen since the days of Stalin," Mr Kasparov wrote on Facebook. Dmitry Agranovsky, a lawyer representing Mr Belousov and a second defendant, Vladimir Akimenkov, said the lengthy pre-trial detention of most of the defendants was proof of the political nature of the charges. "It's not normal or regular that these people have been held for about a year," Mr Agranovsky said. The big street protests in Moscow, which began after disputed parliamentary elections in December 2011, were overwhelmingly peaceful until May 6 last year, the day before Mr Putin's inauguration for a third term as president. At that point, the demonstrations had lost momentum, and the crowd, estimated at 20,000 people, was a fraction of the size of previous events. Among the participants were parents with children and older people, and there was no expectation of violence. However, at some point, a fracas broke out where police barricades had created a bottleneck for the crowds entering the square. Farit Murtazin, the lawyer for Artyom Savyolov, 36, a construction worker employed by the Moscow subway, said his client lived with his ageing father, whom he cared for, before being arrested at the rally, which was authorised. The authorities initially accused Mr Savyolov of shouting anti-government slogans, he said, but dropped that after learning he had a lifelong stutter. Mrs Belousova described her husband as a scholarly man who was not politically active. "He is a man of books," she said, "and this saves him now that he is in jail. I asked him how he celebrated the New Year; he answered that he finished reading five volumes of the history of the Middle Ages. Mr Belousov's lawyer said he was not optimistic about the trial. "Maybe they'll reduce the sentence," he said. In Russia there are practically no acquittals.