MOSCOW (AP) – Moscow police on Saturday arrested about 200 people participating in a forum of independent city councilors, an action that took place amid a frequent crackdown on dissent by Russian authorities.
Police came to the meeting shortly after it opened in a Moscow hotel and said all those present would be detained for participating in an event organized by an “unwanted” organization. A police officer who led the raid said the detainees would be taken to the police station and charged with administrative offenses.
Moscow police said in a statement that they had moved to stop the rally because it violated the restrictions of the coronavirus, as many participants were not wearing masks. They said that about 200 participants were being held, some of whom were reportedly members of an unspecified “unwanted” organization.
OVD-Info, an independent group that monitors arrests and political repression, published a list of more than 180 people who have been detained. They include Ilya Yashin, an opposition politician who heads one of Moscow’s municipal districts; former mayor of Yekaterinburg Yevgeny Roizman; and Moscow City Council member Yulia Galyamina.
Police have begun to release detainees after a court summons to participate in the activities of an “unwanted” organization, a crime that is fined. It was unclear how many were in police custody on Saturday night.
“Their goal was to deter people from participating in politics,” said Andrei Pivovarov, a politician who helped organize the forum, in a video recorded while on a police bus.
Pivovarov has played a leading role in Open Russia, a group funded by self-exiled Russian tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Khodorkovsky moved to London after serving 10 years in prison in Russia on charges widely regarded as political revenge for challenging President Vladimir Putin’s rule.
A 2015 law introduced a criminal penalty for membership in “unwanted” organizations. The government has used the law to ban about 30 groups, including Open Russia.
A previous law required non-governmental organizations that receive foreign funding and engage in activities loosely described as political to register as “foreign agents.”
The laws have been widely criticized as part of the Kremlin’s efforts to suppress dissent, but the Russian authorities have described them as an appropriate response to alleged Western attempts to undermine the country.
Police crackdown on Saturday’s forum follows the arrest and imprisonment of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most determined political enemy was arrested on January 17 when he returned from Germany, where he recovered for five months from a nerve poisoning he blames on the Kremlin. The Russian authorities have rejected the accusation.
Last month, Navalny was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison for violating the terms of his probation while on recovery in Germany – charges he dismissed as a Kremlin vendetta. His arrest and imprisonment sparked a wave of protests across Russia, to which authorities responded with a massive crackdown.
The government has intensified its repression against the opposition in the run-up to the parliamentary elections in September, as the popularity of the main Kremlin-backed party, United Russia, has waned.