Connect with us

Hi, what are you looking for?

World

Protests across Russia see thousands detained

Image source, EPA

Thousands of people have been detained at anti-war protests across Russia on Sunday, rights groups and Russian authorities say.

Some 1,700 people were detained in Moscow alone, the RIA news agency reported, citing the interior ministry.

The OVD-Info rights group says detainments took place in 49 cities.

Advertisement

Although protests have become increasingly restricted in recent years, rallies have taken place across Russia since the Ukraine invasion.

More than 10,000 people have been detained since the war began 11 days ago, OVD-Info says.

“The screws are being fully tightened – essentially we are witnessing military censorship,” Maria Kuznetsova, OVD-Info’s spokeswoman, told Reuters news agency from Tbilisi in Georgia.

“We are seeing rather big protests today – even in Siberian cities, where we only rarely saw such numbers of arrests.”

A policeman by a bus of detained protesters in St Petersburg

Image source, EPA

A woman being led away in Moscow

Image source, EPA

More than 300 people were arrested in St Petersburg

Image source, EPA

Earlier this week, government critic Alexei Navalny – who is in jail on fraud charges – called for daily demonstrations against the invasion, saying Russia should not be a “nation of frightened cowards”.

However, a number of new laws have made it harder to protest in Russia in recent years, rights groups say.

“Although Russian legislation avoids explicitly using terms like ‘permit’ or ‘ban’… it effectively requires organisers to seek authorisation for their assemblies,” Amnesty International says.

According to Russian human rights group OVD-Info – which was set up in 2011 – more than 2,500 people were detained across Russia on Sunday.

It publishes the names and locations of those arrested, as well as total figures.

“Each police department may have more detainees than published lists,” it says. “We publish only the names of those people about whom we know for certain and whose names we can publish.”

Protesters in Almaty, Kazakhstan, in front of a Lenin statue

Image source, Reuters

Thousands of people protested against the invasion in Brussels on Sunday

Image source, EPA

Protests did not just take place in Russia on Sunday, but around the world. In Kazakhstan – an ally of Moscow – a peace rally was permitted in Almaty, attended by around 2,000 people.

In Brussels, anti-war protesters also took to the streets.

And on Saturday, protests even took place in the Ukrainian city of Kherson – which is occupied by Russian forces.

line

War in Ukraine: More coverage

line

You May Also Like

World

For many years we have seen how the Soft Power used by the Kremlin works exclusively through culture, exhibitions, musical groups presentations, etc. It...

United States

A child’s advice for coping with anxiety has gone viral after his mother shared it on Twitter. (Hint: It involves doughnuts, dinosaurs and Dolly...

United States

As health care workers prepare to enter the third year of the pandemic, we are experiencing disillusionment and burnout on an extraordinary scale. Many...

United States

In June a statistic floated across my desk that startled me. In 2020, the number of miles Americans drove fell 13 percent because of...

Copyright © 2021 - New York Globe