Police arrest 600 protesters in Moscow as demonstrations against elections continue

Yahoo UK Staff
Police officers detain a protestor, during an unsanctioned rally in the center of Moscow, Russia, Saturday, Aug. 3, 2019. Moscow police on Saturday detained nearly 90 people protesting the exclusion of some independent and opposition candidates from the city council ballot, a monitoring group said, a week after arresting nearly 1,400 at a similar protest. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
Police officers detain a protestor, during an unsanctioned rally in the center of Moscow. (AP)

Hundreds of people have been arrested at an ‘unsanctioned’ protest in Moscow over opposition candidates being excluded from elections.

Police detained 600 protesters, an arrest monitoring group and the Russian Interior Ministry said, a week after authorities arrested nearly 1,400 people at a similar event.

Lyubov Sobol, one of the excluded candidates and a driving figure of the current wave of protests, was among those detained. She was grabbed by police in central Moscow and hustled into a police van, loudly demanding to know why she was being held.

Demonstrators were aiming to hold a march along the Boulevard Ring, which skirts central Moscow and is a popular locale for people to walk around, despite repeated warnings that police would take active measures against a protest.

Police officers detain an opposition candidate and lawyer at the Foundation for Fighting Corruption Lyubov Sobol in the center of Moscow, Russia, Saturday, Aug. 3, 2019. (AP Photo/Dmitry Serebryakov)
Police officers detain an opposition candidate and lawyer at the Foundation for Fighting Corruption Lyubov Sobol in the center of Moscow, Russia, Saturday, Aug. 3, 2019. (AP Photo/Dmitry Serebryakov)

Helmeted riot police lined the route and started seizing demonstrators from a scattered crowd on Pushkin Square and pushing them back from another square further along the route.

The OVD-Info group, which monitors arrests, said at least 311 people had been detained.

Once a local, low-key affair, the September vote for Moscow's city council is now emblematic of the division within Russian politics and the Kremlin's ongoing struggles with how to deal with strongly opposing views in its sprawling capital of 12.6 million people.

Police block a square during an unsanctioned rally in the center of Moscow, Russia, Saturday, Aug. 3, 2019. Moscow police on Saturday detained nearly 90 people protesting the exclusion of some independent and opposition candidates from the city council ballot, a monitoring group said, a week after arresting nearly 1,400 at a similar protest. (AP Photo/ Alexander Zemlianichenko)
Police block a square during an unsanctioned rally in the center of Moscow, Russia. (AP)

In the past month, the issue has provoked a surprisingly large outcry for a local election. On July 20, about 20,000 people turned out for a demonstration that was the largest in the city in several years.

On Saturday, about 2,000 people attended another rally in St Petersburg supporting the Moscow protests, the local news site Fontanka.ru reported.

The Moscow city council, which has 45 seats, is responsible for a large municipal budget and is now controlled by the pro-Kremlin United Russia party. All of its seats, which have a five-year-term, are up for grabs in the September 8 vote.

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Also on Saturday, Russia's Investigative Committee announced it was opening a criminal case against the Foundation for Fighting Corruption, headed by the Kremlin's most prominent foe Alexei Navalny.

The committee said the organisation was suspected of receiving funding that had been criminally acquired.

Mr Navalny is serving 30 days in jail for calling last week's protest. The head of the foundation also is jail in connection with that protest.

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