Moscow police detain up to 30 anti-corruption protesters

MOSCOW: Police in Moscow detained more than 20 anticorruption protesters who took to the streets on Sunday in a follow-up of last week’s large-scale demonstrations in the Russian capital, according to a witness.

The turnout was much smaller than at rallies last week, when hundreds of protesters including a prominent Kremlin critic, Alexei Navalny, were detained as they went out to demonstrate against corruption, demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.

On Sunday, plain clothes officials and police detained between 20 and 30 people in central Moscow as they tried to organise a march towards Kremlin, the witness said.

Interfax news agency, quoting police, said 29 people were detained for “breaching of public order”.

“Now it is obvious that the problem has escalated because there are so many detained in different cities from Vladivostok to Kaliningrad,” said Ilya Kurzinkov, one of several students from Novosibirsk in Western Siberia who joined in the rally in support of the Muscovites.

“In general people are beaten, hurt. Even now, here, we see people are being detained, provocateurs appear.”

There were some 100 protesters in the centre of Moscow, a significantly smaller group than at last week’s protests, reckoned to be the biggest since a wave of anti-Kremlin demonstrations in 2011/2012.

The protests come a year before a presidential election in which Vladimir Putin is expected to run for a fourth term.