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Opposition marks election day with protests

Activists of the Left Front, Other Russia and nationalists took to the streets

The non-system opposition that in advance announced the elections as unfair marked the election day with demonstrations and protests. Activists of the Left Front, Other Russia and nationalists took to the streets. As a result, over one hundred of protesters were detained.

The non-system opposition marked the election day quite predictably with demonstrations and rallies, RBK daily wrote. The authorities’ reaction was predictable as well – over one hundred of protesters, including Other Russia leader Eduard Limonov, were detained. The co-chair of Nakh-Nakh party, former deputy prime minister, Boris Nemtsov, avoided detention, however he has all chances to be taken to a detention ward later on Monday, when people would gather on Chistoprudny Boulevard in central Moscow to protest against the election results.

Back on December 1 the Moscow police department organized a meeting with leaders of opposition parties and movements, who received an official warning of the Moscow prosecutor’s office saying that any attempts to hold rallies are illegal, the daily wrote. It would be surprising if this warning stopped the non-system opposition - on Sunday they tried to hold rallies, but were destined to failure in the places they had chosen for protests. Yesterday all “problematic” places in Moscow’s centre were cordoned off by police and special task forces.

No less than 70 protesters were arrested during the rally in St. Petersburg, the Kommersant business daily said. In one of the buses where they were taken, protesters got into a brawl with police. As a result, a bus window was broken. Among those detained were executive director of the St. Petersburg office of United Civil Front, Olga Kurnosova, and a member of radical art group War, Leonid Nikolayev. Nationalists tried to gather at Moscow’s Revolution Square at 21:00. “Maybe, we have to take submachine guns with us?” the former leader of the banned Movement Against Illegal Migration, Alexander Belov, shouted, announcing the protest action against unfair elections during the Russian March nationalist demonstration last November. Police carefully prepared for the planned rally and detained everyone, who had a resemblance to a nationalist or skinhead activist.

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