“I didn’t dare eat the food.”

“Of course it is inaccurate to say that the police commander was the one in command. KGB officers in plain clothes were clearly in charge even at the police station, and the arrest itself was as choreographed as the trial to come. When the special security forces known as OMON pushed in past everyone else to arrest me, we could all hear “make sure you get Kasparov” on their walkie-talkies.” Yesterday Garry Kasparov wrote about his five-day detention in The Wall Street Journal. “I have no intention of becoming a martyr.”

Garry Kasparov is a regular contributor to The Wall Street Journal and when he was released from detention last Thursday, he said he had had enough time to ponder on a new piece. It was published yesterday. Some quotes:

“For years the governments of the U.S. and Europe have tried to accept Vladimir Putin’s Russia as an equal. Western diplomats now acknowledge that there are differences between Russia and the West, but say these differences are minor, and – in the words of one European Union official – within an “acceptable range.” For me and for a dozen of my associates last week, that “acceptable range” was 120 square feet. That’s the size of the jail cell I occupied for five days as punishment for “disobeying the orders of a police officer” at an opposition rally in Moscow last Saturday.”

“From the moment of our detention, we were not allowed to see our lawyers, even when charged at the police station. Three hours into the trial, the judge said it would be adjourned to the following day. But the judge then left the bench and returned to say that we had misheard her, and that my trial would go forward. No doubt another example of what we call “telephone justice.”

“My other concern was food, since it was out of the question to consume anything provided by the staff. (Nor do I fly Aeroflot. “Paranoia” long ago became an obsolete concept among those in opposition to the Putin regime.) On Sunday, thanks to growing external pressure, they allowed me to receive food packages from home.”

As written before, Anatoli Karpov tried to visit his old rival but wasn’t allowed to see him. In an interview with Dagobert Kohlmeyer, Karpov said he wanted to bring Kasparov a chess magazine. He went for “pure humanitarian reasons.”

“It was the third day of his detention, and I understand how difficult it is to be locked up. I just wanted to see whether he was treated decently. And when they had let me through, I would have spent some time with him. (…) Even in the most difficult times, there was always diplomatic contact between us. (…) I think it was a mistake in the first place for Kasparov to end his chess career and go into politics.”

Yesterday the party of Russia’s president Vladimir Putin won the elections with more than 60 percent of the vote. The opposition vowed to challenge the outcome, claiming widespread ballot-rigging in the vote. More and more signals of fraud during the elections are entering the news. The Communists, likely to be the only opposition force in parliament, said they would challenge the result in the Supreme Court. The New York Times has a good analysis of the situation.