BISHKEK, March 18: Protesters in ex-Soviet Kyrghyzstan surged past police and occupied a government building in the southern town of Osh on Friday, the latest challenge to the authorities after a disputed poll. Seven police officials were injured when a crowd, and at least two horsemen, pushed past lines of unarmed police guarding the regional administration’s building.

Protesters in other regions have carried out similar demonstrations and elected “people’s councils” after a parliamentary election that routed the opposition, but Friday’s protest was the first with any reported injuries. Monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) criticized the vote, held in two rounds on Feb 27 and March 13, over vote-buying, the disqualification of opposition candidates and media manipulation.

Police spokesman Zhenish Ashirbayev said three police officials were taken to hospital with concussion and other injuries and four were lightly wounded. Two protesters on horseback were the first to charge police lines, he said.

“We didn’t use any force, we just linked arms,” he said. Protesters have demanded re-runs and the resignation of President Askar Akayev, in power since 1990. —Reuters