Araweelo News Network
Moscow(ANN)-Russian authorities have arrested a prominent opposition leader before he was reaching the site of a mass protest rally in the capital Moscow.
Yulia, the wife of Alexei Navalny, said Monday that he was arrested outside his home en route to the centerpiece demonstration on the Tverskaya Street. There was no official confirmation on the arrest, which Yulia said came half an hour before the protest was to begin.
Tverskaya, known in Soviet times as Gorky Street and one of Moscow’s main thoroughfares, had been picked up by Navalny the location of a big protest rally on Monday. However, it was closed off to traffic earlier in the day for an extensive commemoration of the national holiday Russia Day.
Navalny said officials had even pressured contractors hired to build a stage at the venue to stop their work.
Police in Moscow also warned that they would be tough on any act of provocation during the Russia Day commemorations, saying any such act would be “a threat to public order and will be immediately suppressed.”
Other police sources said that the protests on Tverskaya would be tolerated as long as protesters did not carry placards or shout slogans.
Thousands rally across Russia against corruption
Thousands of demonstrators on Monday marched in different cities across Russia to protest against corruption. Monday’s rallies were the second mass action called by Navalny since March 26.
Hundreds of protesters had been also detained during the March rallies against corruption.
A day after the demonstrations, the Kremlin denounced as a “provocation” the protests, claiming that young demonstrators, who had taken to the streets to protest against corruption and demand the resignation of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, had been “promised financial rewards in the event of their detention by law enforcement agencies” during the protests.
Riot police guard as demonstrators take part in an anti-corruption protest in central St. Petersburg, Russia, June 12, 2017. (Photo by Reuters)
According to reports, police detained over 200 people during Monday’s anti-corruption rallies.
“About 121 people were detained in Moscow up to this point. In Saint-Petersburg – 137,” OVD-Info, an NGO, wrote on Twitter, following reports of detentions in the far-eastern Vladivostok and the southern resort Sochi.
Navalny is currently regarded as the most prominent opposition figure in Russia. He was briefly arrested along with some 1,000 people after protests in late March, which came following his allegations about corruption in the government.
He again made the headlines in April when an attacker doused his face with a green antiseptic liquid. The outspoken opposition leader has announced that he would run for the presidency in the 2018 election.