Monitors Complain of Pressure in Russia Polls

Russian election monitors Monday sorted through thousands of complaints of alleged fraud in presidential polls, as they complained of pressure and even beatings during their work.

"The situation is really difficult," said Grigory Melkonyants, deputy head of Golos monitoring group, which fielded thousands of volunteers and took 14,000 calls from voters complaining about perceived fraud.

The average result that has already been sent in by monitors from Golos and other organizations gave Vladimir Putin 50.1 percent. Official results showed him winning almost 64 percent.

More analysis was needed to evaluate the scope of various fraudulent schemes, Melkonyants said, adding that in general, less noticeable tricks were preferred to outright ballot stuffing.

But Golos expressed concern over monitors who said they were beaten in the Moscow region town of Zheleznodorozhny, then taken in a car and dumped in an industrial zone outside the city.

Forced to leave their polling station, they were writing complaints at a territorial committee's office in city hall, when several men dragged them out of the building, said Elizaveta Klepikova.

"He was grabbing me by the hair. When my hair was pulled out and I fell, he grabbed me again. It was very professional, because it leaves no marks, though half of my hair is gone," Lepikova said in a shaking voice.

"It was scary," she said, adding that she thinks the men were security operatives in civilian clothing, directed by their superior.

"I almost fainted several times because they were strangling me," another victim Ildar Daden told Agence France Presse. "They were trying to prevent me from yelling out my name to bystanders, while they told them 'We're from the FSB! We're from the FSB!'"

"They put us in a car and unloaded us in the outskirts of town and told us not to come back. One hit me with a flat palm, and over the nose. I understood that they don't want to leave marks."

Dadin added that the victims left a complaint about the beating with the police by phone but found out Monday that there was no official record of it.