26 March 2017, 17:02
In SFD and NCFD, actions held by Alexei Navalny's supporters result in mass detentions
In Makhachkala, Krasnodar, and Volgograd, where the police stopped the rallies organized by supporters of opposition activist Alexei Navalny, participants of the protest actions against corruption were detained. Two oppositionists were detained in Rostov-on-Don, where after lengthy negotiations with the opposition, the police still allowed people to hold the action until the very end.
After the Alexei Navalny's Foundation to Combat Corruption had released the film "He is not Dimon for you", positioned by the authors as a documented investigation of a large-scale corruption scheme of charitable foundations, oligarchs and state-owned banks, in many cities of Russia, including in the Southern Federal District (SFD) and the North-Caucasian Federal District (NCFD), activists launched the preparation for rallies with the demand to investigate the information announced in the film. The authorities of several cities refused to sanction the actions.
By 4:36 p.m., in Makhachkala, 80 people were detained at the anti-corruption rally. Meanwhile, the Makhachkala Soviet ROVD (District Interior Division), to where the detainees were brought, reported about more than 100 detainees. The police did not listen to the arguments of the protesters about the legality of their action and stopped it, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports from the place.
In Krasnodar, according to coordinators, the number of Alexei Navalny's supporters detained during the action reached about 200 people, including Miroslav Valkovich, the organizer of the action and the chief of the Alexei Navalny's headquarters in Krasnodar.
Despite the prohibition of officials, at least 200 supporters of Alexei Navalny gathered in Lenin Square in Volgograd to hold the planned rally. The police initially did not interfere with the action, but then began to disperse it. About 10 people were detained and taken away from Lenin Square in paddy wagons, the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent reports at 4:10 p.m.
At 2:00 p.m., in Rostov-on-Don, about 100 supporters of Alexei Navalny came to the action in Theatre Square. This was told to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent by Leonid Sankin, one of the organizers of the action. Before the action, policemen detained Oleg Diev and Pavel Kalashnikov, activists of the "PARNAS" Party.
In Astrakhan, instead of a rally that was not sanctioned by the authorities, supporters of Alexei Navalny held a series of solo pickets that did not require any sanction. About 70 people stood in turn in front of the walls of the Astrakhan Kremlin with anti-corruption posters in their hands.
Alexei Navalny himself was detained at an unsanctioned rally against corruption in Moscow. This was reported on Twitter by Roman Rubanov, the director of the Foundation to Combat Corruption (FCC).
Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.
Author: Natalia Dorokhina, Patimat Makhmudova, Tatiana Filimonova, Konstantin Volgin Source: CK correspondents