Another action of the non-system opposition within the framework of Strategy-31 was held in Moscow on Monday. One more slogan, “Elections without opposition are a crime,” was added to the traditional demand that the freedom of meetings should be guaranteed, but this did not help increase the number of participants in the protest action. Their total number was about 200. This time no massive arrests were made.
The police units, which obviously outnumbered the protesters, did not let the participants in the action get together in the same place and dispersed them in every way, The Novye Izvestia writes. There were no massive arrests, however. The policemen captured those in the crowd, who carried posters or streamers. The police did not create the impression that they intended to arrest as many protesters as possible. On the contrary, they drove the protesters away and did not let them go, but no cruelty was displayed.
The opposition leaders – Eduard Limonov, leader of the unregistered political party Another Russia, and Ilya Yashin, a member of the federal bureau of the Solidarity movement, were arrested for the very fact of appearing in the square, Kommersant writes. Merited Artist of Russia Mikhail Kondratiev, who is a well-known conductor, was one of the first to be arrested. He became popular after he was dismissed from the post of chief conductor of the Pacific Symphony Orchestra for his refusal to join the All-Russia Popular Front. Sergey Udaltsov, coordinator of the Left-Wing Front, was blocked in his flat and could not come to the rally. Rank-and-file activists were arrested for chanting a habitual set of slogans, demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Some protesters demanded “freedom to Matvey Krylov” (criminal proceedings were instituted against the activist of Another Russia for splashing water into the face of the state prosecutor on the case of unrest in the Manezhny Square).