Several dozen people were detained in protests across Russia yesterday, after the opposition urged people to take to the streets to demonstrate against corruption and demand the resignation of Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny said on his Web site that more than 80 towns and cities across Russia would hold protests yesterday and that authorities had not sanctioned the majority of the rallies.
In the far eastern Russian city of Vladivostok, a reporter saw the detention of at least 30 protesters at an unsanctioned rally drawing hundreds of young people to a square near the city’s railway station.
Photo: Reuters
The detentions started after protesters unfurled banners reading “Corruption steals our future” and “The prime minister should answer.”
The protesters then marched to a local police station to demand that police free those who had been detained.
Hundreds also rallied in the city of Yekaterinburg in the industrial Urals region.
Witnesses said at least four people holding banners were detained on the city’s Labor Square, where opposition protesters, nationalists and supporters of the pro-Kremlin United Russia Party gathered.
Russian police later yesterday detained opposition leader Alexei Navalny in central Moscow at a rally which Navalny had called to protest against corruption.
A reporter saw police detain Navalny on Moscow’s Tverskaya Street and put him in a police truck. Hundreds of opposition protesters crowded around the police van and tried to prevent it from taking Navalny away.
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