The police in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg arrested 70 people on April 15, the third day of protests against the construction of a Russian Orthodox cathedral in a park square in the city center, the Interior Ministry of the Sverdlovsk Region said in a statement on Thursday
YEKATERINBURG (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th May, 2019) The police in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg arrested 70 people on April 15, the third day of protests against the construction of a Russian Orthodox cathedral in a park square in the city center, the Interior Ministry of the Sverdlovsk Region said in a statement on Thursday.
"Seventy people, including three minors, were detained for various administrative offenses. At 02:30 a.m. Thursday [21:30 Wednesday GMT] participants of the action dispersed," it said.
The statement added that 304 police officers and the National Guard of Russia personnel were providing security during the third day of protests.
Since Monday, several protests have been held against the construction of the new church and in favor of saving the park. The governor of the Sverdlovsk Region, Yevgeny Kuivashev, has called on both sides to engage in dialogue. At the same time, after talks with those for and against the church construction, the authorities said that there were no legal grounds for halting the project.
On Wednesday, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the Kremlin believed that the Yekaterinburg authorities were acting appropriately in the conflict.
