For Putin to listen and let them vote | Massive my …

Despite the hard hand of the Putin government, another mobilization took place in Moscow to demand free elections and an end to political repression. With about 40,000 attendees, the protest has become the biggest show of force of the Russian opposition since 2012. The harshness of the police was again felt with new arrests of politicians and protesters from the US. opposition.

The mobilization in the city center had been authorized by the Moscow City Council and had gathered more than 40,000 people, according to the NGO Contador Blanco. The police estimated the number of participants at around 20,000. To gain access to the concentration site, protesters had to go through arches of metal detectors, forming long lines.

"We demand the cancellation of the (municipal) elections of 8 September and the calling of new elections," said opposition representative Yulia Galiamina at the podium. She is currently serving an administrative arrest for participating in an unauthorized protest. Before the beginning of the act, the leader Liubov Sobol, close collaborator of the leader of the opposition, Alexei Navalni, had been arrested. Sobol, a lawyer with the Navalni Anti-Corruption Fund and a candidate for the Moscow parliament, has announced his arrest in real time on social media. "I will not be able to go to the protest anymore, but they know what to do without me, I'm proud of all those who will come out today, Russia will be free," Sobol wrote on his Twitter account.

The protests began on July 14 when the electoral commission refused to register 57 candidates to the Moscow parliament. Among them are some of the main opposition leaders, such as Dmitry Gudkov and Ilya Yachin, who are also serving administrative arrests for organizing unauthorized demonstrations. According to the electoral authorities, the archives were rejected because they included hundreds of deaths or missing persons in their lists.

The only authorized act took place on July 20th and gathered more than 20,000 people. Unauthorized demonstrations in Moscow on 27 July and 3 August ended with about 2,000 detainees and more than 100 arrests. Some could be sentenced to several years in prison for "mbad riots", a criminal figure criticized by human rights defenders and opposition media.

"The aggressiveness of power is due to the fact that it has nothing to offer society," proclaimed the leader of the liberal party Yábloko, Seguéi Mitrojin, when he entered the scene. The politician, who also rejected his candidacy for the elections in Moscow, demanded to release all those who were prosecuted for "mbad riots" and to allow the participation of independent candidates in the municipal elections.

The arrests monitoring site OVD Info The number of detainees in Moscow was estimated at more than 100, including an activist who encouraged participants to "walk around" in the city center, seeking to move the protest in the vicinity of the Russian presidential administration . Several hundred people responded to this call and found the administration surrounded by a large number of police who proceeded to mbadively arrest the protesters.

While these events were taking place in Moscow, an action was taken in solidarity with Moscow's opponents in St. Petersburg, during which some 80 people were arrested. OVD Info.

Commenting on the results of the call, one of the co-organizers, Ilya Azar, said that the number of protesters reflected the desire of citizens to continue the protests. "This is a sign that people are not afraid and are willing to continue going outside." The protest will continue, "promised the opponent.