Russian protesters’ homes raided as oppn plans weekly rallies

MOSCOW: Russian authorities early Wednesday morning searched the homes of two protesters suspected of planning last weekend’s unauthorised opposition rally, monitoring group OVD-INFO reported.

“The police officers are not disclosing which department they are from,” the group, which independently monitors Russian law enforcement actions, said in a statement. Opposition supporters enraged by the rejection of several of their candidates from the ballot for upcoming Moscow city council elections have rallied for the past two weeks.

They plan to continue rallying for at least the next two weeks. A Facebook event for an upcoming central Moscow rally this Saturday lists about 5,000 people as going.

Russia’s top investigative agency, the Investigative Committee, has opened a criminal case into last Saturday’s rally on an allegation that organizers were inciting a riot.

At least one suspect, Kirill Zhukov, previously fined for participating in the rally, has been detained on the riot charge, punishable by up to 15 years in prison, according to a statement by Pavel Chikov, head of the human rights group Agora.

According to official data, more than 1,000 protesters, about a third of the estimated 3,500 who attended last Saturday’s rally in central Moscow, were detained.

It was the largest number of detentions at a Russian protest in the past decade, OVD-INFO said. Photos and videos circulated on social networks showed police dragging away protesters in an attempt to disperse the crowds.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said protesters were “blocking roads and attacking police” and “simply forced the police to use force,” according to comments carried by state media. Germany’s minister of state for Europe, Michael Roth, condemned the “brutal violence against peaceful protesters in Moscow.”