Police on Saturday detained as many as 295 people for taking part in an illegal rally in the center of Moscow ahead of the elections to the Moscow City Duma that are scheduled for September 8, the Russian Interior Ministry said
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 27th July, 2019) Police on Saturday detained as many as 295 people for taking part in an illegal rally in the center of Moscow ahead of the elections to the Moscow City Duma that are scheduled for September 8, the Russian Interior Ministry said.Around 3,500 people have gathered earlier in the day near the State Duma building on Tverskaya Street, demanding that independent nominees for elections to the Moscow city parliament be registered as candidates. This in the second unauthorized rally organized by the opposition ahead of the elections. On July 14, police detained more than 25 people, who were trying to set up a tent camp near the Moscow City Election Commission.
"At the unauthorized rally in the center of the capital city 295 people were detained for disorderly conduct. A significant number of detainees are not residents of Moscow," the ministry's press service said.
According to the press service, detainees are being brought to local police stations for the proceedings.
A Sputnik correspondent reported that the police have fully cleansed both sides of Tverskaya Street of protesters and scattered them over streets next to it between Pushkin Square and Gazetny Lane.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said earlier that the opposition's attempt to organize riots would not do any good and the order in the city would be ensured in accordance with the law.
Earlier on Saturday, opposition figures, who were recently denied registration for the elections, Ivan Zhdanov, Dmitry Gudkov and Lyubov Sobol said they were arrested during the rally.
The nomination of candidates was completed on July 5. In the first stage of the election campaign, a total of 233 candidates were registered after the city election commission had checked signatures collected by them. It registered 171 party-nominated and 62 self-nominated candidates, another 57 nominees were denied registration, including nominee from the Yabloko party Sergey Mitrokhin, Gudkov, Sobol, rock musician Sergey "the Spider" Troitsky, former footballer Dmitry Bulykin and actor Andrey Sokolov.
The city election commission cited a large proportion of "bad" signatures as the reason for denials. Some of those denied registration protested the decision, accusing the commission's signatures checkers of gross violations.
