Hundreds arrested at Moscow protest
Rally draws thousands after candidates rejected for upcoming elections
More than1,000 people were arrested during demonstrations against alleged irregularities in the run-up to local elections in the Russian capital of Moscow, police said Saturday.
Russian activists protested outside the Moscow mayor’s office, shouting “you are a disgrace for Russia,” after several opposition candidates were controversially rejected from the ballot for upcoming city council elections.
Police could be seen arresting many people and placing them in police vehicles around the town hall building. reporters at the protests also witnessed some injured demonstrators.
Police had previously warned of a crackdown on the rally, which had not been authorized by city authorities. According to police, about 3,500 people participated in the protest. Many had travelled to Moscow from other cities.
The Interfax news agency late Saturday quoted police as saying that 1,074 protesters had been detained. Civil rights blog OWD-Info also listed more than 1,000 arrests.
Police had said they would “take every measure needed” to “fend off any breach of the public order,” state news agency Tass reported.
During the rally, police closed off access to the town hall with cars and buses and conducted ID checks on many protesters. Some of the detained were released by Saturday evening.
“What is happening here is illegal,” said one protester who wished to remain anonymous. “Politics is breaking our rights.”
The protesters are demanding that independent candidates be allowed on the ballot for the city elections on Sept. 8. A total of 57 candidates have been rejected from the ballot, including prominent government critics Ilya Yashin, Dmitry Gudkov and Lyubov Sobol.
Gudkov, Sobol and Yashin were all arrested on their way to the protest.
The electoral commission registered 233 candidates to compete for the 45 seats in Moscow’s city council.
The electoral commission has said the documents handed in by the rejected candidates had been flagged as fake, as they included mistakes such as missing letters or fake signatures from supporters.
The rejected politicians have called these claims absurd and said their documents had been manipulated.
One protester, who gave her name as Natalya, said she was afraid of being arrested but added: “I am more afraid of the future: that cheating like this becomes the norm.” Gudkov told radio Echo Moskvy that they had been banned so they would not take votes away from the ruling United Russia party, which has been slumping in the polls recently and deemed responsible for the sluggish economy. United Russia pushed through a controversial pension reform, while wages and living standards are down.
Last weekend, thousands of demonstrators, including protest leader Alexei Navalny, attended a similar rally in central Moscow.
Navalny was arrested a few days later on a misdemeanour charge of organizing an unauthorized public gathering and sentenced to 30 days in jail.
“It’s obvious they are arresting me for calling the protest on the 27th,” Navalny said in a video taken while in custody. “Because they are arresting me, I, of course, ask you to come out to the protest.”
Navalny came in second in the 2013 Moscow mayoral election, with about a quarter of the official votes. He has been repeatedly detained for organizing rallies without state approval.
The last time Moscow’s authorities moved this harshly against protesters was in June. More than 400 people were arrested when they marched to show their support for investigative journalist Ivan Golunov, who had been arrested on spurious grounds.