Russian Police Hold Hundreds of Protesters in Moscow
Russian police arrested hundreds of people who attended the protest in the country's capital, Moscow. Demonstrators demand free elections.
Riot police barricades that linked weapons and swept demonstrators when activists gathered in Pushkin Square to protest against the exclusion of independent and opposition candidates from the Moscow city council elections. The crowd of demonstrators was pushed to Trubnaya Square when the police continued to clean up.
An independent monitoring group, OVD said, at least 381 people were detained. At a similar protest last week, police arrested at least 1,400 people, beating several people with clubs.
Meanwhile, opposition leader Lyubov Sobol, who is currently on a three-week hunger strike after being barred from voting, was dragged from a taxi and detained when he was leaving for a rally.
Grigory Durnovo, the coordinator of the OVD info monitoring group, said that police began detaining demonstrators before the demonstration began.
"The rally was planned to start at 2:00 pm Moscow time. The first detention began about two hours before. We could call it preventive detention, because people were taken to the police station and they were asked to sign a warning order not to attend the general meeting and not even "appeared in the streets close to the place where the rally will be held," he was quoted as saying by Al Jazeera, Saturday (3/8/2019).
OVD Info said several detainees, including members of the election commission of the Aleksandr Sviderskiy police station, reported being beaten by the police.
Reporter Al Jazeera, who reported from the protest site in Moscow, said there were more police officers in the area than protesters.
"They went to the crowd and detained people. Most of the protesters left peacefully, allowing themselves to be arrested. But this is far from the number we saw in previous protests," reporter Al Jazeera said.
"It seems that the Russian authorities have succeeded so far to really limit the magnitude of this protest," he added.
Disputes about local elections have sparked huge protests. On July 20, about 20,000 people held a demonstration which was the largest in the city in several years.
The demonstrators said they only wanted the opposition to have a chance to advance.
"I want big changes now that there is an atmosphere of complete control," said Varvara, a 22-year-old artist.
"I believe everyone must have the right to take part in the polls," said another 39-year-old demonstrator Robert.
The local news site Fontanka.ru reports that around 3,000 people attended a rally in St Petersburg to support the Moscow protest.
The Moscow city council, which has 45 seats, is responsible for a large city budget and is now controlled by the pro-Kremlin United Russia party. All seats, which have a term of five years, are ready to be contested in the upcoming September 8 elections.
Once a low-lying local affair, the vote has shaken Russia's political scene when the Kremlin struggles to confront very conflicting views in a capital city of 12.6 million.
In the past month, this problem has triggered a large surprise protest for local elections. On July 20, around 20,000 people held the demonstration which was the largest in the city in several years. { Source }
Riot police barricades that linked weapons and swept demonstrators when activists gathered in Pushkin Square to protest against the exclusion of independent and opposition candidates from the Moscow city council elections. The crowd of demonstrators was pushed to Trubnaya Square when the police continued to clean up.
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| Photo from: Source |
An independent monitoring group, OVD said, at least 381 people were detained. At a similar protest last week, police arrested at least 1,400 people, beating several people with clubs.
Meanwhile, opposition leader Lyubov Sobol, who is currently on a three-week hunger strike after being barred from voting, was dragged from a taxi and detained when he was leaving for a rally.
Grigory Durnovo, the coordinator of the OVD info monitoring group, said that police began detaining demonstrators before the demonstration began.
"The rally was planned to start at 2:00 pm Moscow time. The first detention began about two hours before. We could call it preventive detention, because people were taken to the police station and they were asked to sign a warning order not to attend the general meeting and not even "appeared in the streets close to the place where the rally will be held," he was quoted as saying by Al Jazeera, Saturday (3/8/2019).
OVD Info said several detainees, including members of the election commission of the Aleksandr Sviderskiy police station, reported being beaten by the police.
Reporter Al Jazeera, who reported from the protest site in Moscow, said there were more police officers in the area than protesters.
"They went to the crowd and detained people. Most of the protesters left peacefully, allowing themselves to be arrested. But this is far from the number we saw in previous protests," reporter Al Jazeera said.
"It seems that the Russian authorities have succeeded so far to really limit the magnitude of this protest," he added.
Disputes about local elections have sparked huge protests. On July 20, about 20,000 people held a demonstration which was the largest in the city in several years.
The demonstrators said they only wanted the opposition to have a chance to advance.
"I want big changes now that there is an atmosphere of complete control," said Varvara, a 22-year-old artist.
"I believe everyone must have the right to take part in the polls," said another 39-year-old demonstrator Robert.
The local news site Fontanka.ru reports that around 3,000 people attended a rally in St Petersburg to support the Moscow protest.
The Moscow city council, which has 45 seats, is responsible for a large city budget and is now controlled by the pro-Kremlin United Russia party. All seats, which have a term of five years, are ready to be contested in the upcoming September 8 elections.
Once a low-lying local affair, the vote has shaken Russia's political scene when the Kremlin struggles to confront very conflicting views in a capital city of 12.6 million.
In the past month, this problem has triggered a large surprise protest for local elections. On July 20, around 20,000 people held the demonstration which was the largest in the city in several years. { Source }
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