The mayor of Moscow pledged Tuesday to continue broadcasts on outdoor monitors of World Cup games despite a riot which broke out during a match shown across from the Kremlin earlier this week that left two dead.
Up to 8,000 people, mainly young men and teen-age boys, many of them drunk, rampaged during the soccer game which Russia lost Sunday to Japan 1-0, setting cars ablaze, smashing windows, fighting police and each other.
"Broadcasts will continue," Luzhkov said at an official meeting Tuesday in remarks carried by Russia's NTV television. "We won't yield to those who would like to deprive people of the opportunities of communication, information possibilities characteristic of a modern civilized nation, a modern civilized city."
Many Russian politicians and lawmakers have criticized the mayor's office and police for failing to avert the violence and quickly deploy police when the rampage began. The security affairs committee at the lower house of parliament examined the role of the police during a closed-door meeting Tuesday.
Luzhkov defended the police and said their action was "absolutely appropriate," the Interfax and ITAR-Tass news agencies reported. He said police were short on manpower but added that it was hard to predict the riots.
During the official meeting Tuesday, Luzhkov described the rampage as an "unexpected and hard lesson for the city." He wouldn't comment on the riots during a news conference later.
(Xinhua News Agency June 12, 2002)
