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Opposition activist Ildar Dadin detained again for staging one-man picket - lawyer

A source in the Moscow police said russian opposition activist has been detained along with three more people

MOSCOW, April 2. /TASS/. Russian opposition activist Ildar Dadin has been again detained by the police for a one-man picket in front of the building of the Russian interior ministry’s Moscow department, Dadin’s lawyer, Ksenia Kostromina, told TASS on Sunday.

"Ildar was detained to staging a one-man picket. We have no more further details," she said.

Meanwhile, Dadin’s another lawyer, Alexei Liptser, said he was detained for staging a picket in front of the building of the interior ministry’s Moscow department. "Supposedly, he has been taken to the Tverskoy police station," he added.

A source in the Moscow police said Dadin has been detained along with three more people. "They were detained for an unauthorized rally," the source said, adding that Dadin may face a charge under a relevant article of the Russian Code of Administrative Offences.

On March 10, Dadin was detained at the building of the Federal Penitentiary Service in central Moscow after he had refused to show his passport. Dadin’s wife, Anastasia Zotova, said he had left his passport at home. The activist took part in a picket, along with human rights activist Lev Ponomarev, demanding resignation of a number of penitentiary system officials, including the chief of the Karelia colony.

In December 2015, Moscow’s Basmanny District Court found Dadin guilty on four counts of participating in unauthorized protests in Moscow. He was sentenced to three years in a penal colony but then the Moscow City Court reduced his jail term to two and a half years. On February 10, 2017, Russia’s Constitutional Court ruled to review Dadin’s case which was done by the Supreme Court on February 22. The Supreme Court ruled to cancel Dadin’s conviction and release the activist.

In November 2016, the Russian media published a letter by Dadin saying that he was subject to torture while serving his sentence in the Segezh colony in Karelia, northwestern Russia. However, independent doctors who visited him in the colony found no signs of bodily injuries, neither did investigators. Later it became known that after a probe, Dadin was transferred to a penal colony in the Altai region, Siberia.