Dozens detained at Moscow rally amid rage over journalist’s arrest
MOSCOW — Police in Russia’s capital on Wednesday detained scores of protesters a day after the authorities freed an investigative journalist who was jailed on trumped-up drug charges.
Wednesday’s protest had been scheduled to call for the freedom of Ivan Golunov, a reporter for news outlet Meduza who insisted drugs had been planted on him when he was detained last week. Even though officials dropped charges against Golunov on Tuesday after an unprecedented public outcry, more than 1,000 people still took to Moscow’s streets to highlight the injustice they say an untold number of less well-known Russians face.
The tough police response suggested that the Kremlin was determined to keep public dissent in check despite Tuesday’s striking reversal.
City officials didn’t authorize the rally. While the hundreds of police officers initially allowed the protesters to gather, they began detaining people as the crowd started to walk along central Moscow’s Boulevard Ring toward the police headquarters on Petrovka Street.
Two hours into the protest, police said they had arrested more than 200 people out of 1,200 protesters, according to the Interfax news agency. OVD-Info, a group that monitors detentions, later said more than 420 people had been detained. Those taken included journalists from leading Russian news outlets and the opposition politician Alexei Navalny. Video footage showed officers carrying some people by their arms and legs.
Golunov was freed Tuesday after five days of outrage from Russia’s media community, with even proKremlin journalists voicing doubt over the police’s actions and star entertainers calling for justice. He was detained in Moscow last Thursday and charged with drug possession with the intent to sell, a crime that could have landed Golunov in prison for more than 10 years.
Golunov and his editors insisted he had been framed as punishment for his articles, which uncovered official corruption.